Chapter 3 (Unit 4) - Attraction Flashcards
1- Predictors of attraction
- Research has traditionally focused on specific factors that predict attraction,
on average
– Proximity/familiarity
– Physical attractiveness & other personal characteristics
– Similarity
– Reciprocity - Assumes that we are attracted to those whose presence is rewarding
SOCIAL EXCHANGE
THEORY
- Postulates that we act a bit like
shoppers in an interpersonal
marketplace - Seek the most fulfilling partners
that will have us—those that will
maximize rewards while
minimizing costs
POWER OF PROXIMITY
- Proximity =
closeness/nearness - Basic, powerful factor that
drives liking - More likely to meet, get to
know, & form a relationship
with someone with someone
you see regularly where you
live, work, etc.
WESTGATE HOUSING STUDY
(FESTINGER ET AL., 1950)
* Married MIT students assigned to one of 17 buildings in a housing complex in
a random fashion (by the building manager) à natural experiment
* Virtually no one knows anyone in the complex beforehand
* Simple question: Who ends up liking whom?
RESULTS
* Not just about physical distance
– Those living next to stairwells made more friends with people upstairs
– Those living next to high traffic areas (e.g., laundry room, mailboxes) and/or
those who had windows facing a common courtyard made more friends
* Functional distance = likelihood of coming into contact with other people
due to location or features of architectural design
HOW DOES IT WORK?
* 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 (mere exposure)
and they become more
familiar to us
MORELAND & BEACH, 1992
* College-age female confederates
attended class 0, 5, 10, or 15 times
during a semester
– At end of semester, students asked
to evaluate photos of each
confederate
– The more often the confederate
attended class, the more positively
she was rated
UNDERLYING MECHANISMS?
* Perceptual fluency explanation
– Easier to process information about familiar stimuli (greater fluency)
– Pleasant feelings associated with more fluent processing
* Classical conditioning (Zajonc, 1968)
– Encounters with novel stimuli put us on our guard
– Repeated exposure to a stimulus without any negative consequence signals
that the stimulus is safe and nonthreatening
– The comfortable feeling of safety associated with the stimulus after multiple
exposures renders it more pleasant
CAVEAT
Mere exposure effect will not
occur for stimuli that are
initially disliked
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
- Has received large amount of research
attention
– Do we agree on what makes someone
physically attractive?
– How much does physical attractiveness
matter?
– Does it matter to a different extent for men and women?
WHO’S ATTRACTIVE?
DO WE AGREE?
* Some disagreement on whether a given photo is attractive (Marcus & Miller, 2003; Diener et al., 1995)
– Idiosyncratic preferences come into play when judging individuals
* Certain standards of beauty differ across cultures & time
* So, some standards of beauty shift and we may not always agree on a specific
individual’s attractiveness
* But there is broad consensus about the general features that are considered
attractive
* Evident across different cultural groups
* Newborn infants share adults’ preferences
* These two factors suggest a degree of innateness
* Women: cross-cultural preference for “baby-faced” features
(Cunningham et al., 1995; Cunningham et al., 2002)
– Large eyes, small nose, small chin, full lips
– But combined with signs of maturity: e.g., high, prominent
cheekbones, thick hair
* Less cross-cultural consensus for male features
– Preference for wide smile & broad jaw and forehead
(Cunningham et al., 1990)
– But “softer” features attractive too (convey warmth & friendliness)
THE “AVERAGENESS”
EFFECT
* Faces that are “average” are seen as more
attractive
– Tend to perceive a composite image of many faces “averaged” together as more attractive than the individual faces of which the composite is comprised
FACIAL
SYMMETRY
* Bilateral (two-sided)
symmetry contributes
to attractiveness
* True of other species as
well (Markow & Ricker,
1992)
WHY ARE “AVERAGENESS” &
FACIAL SYMMETRY ATTRACTIVE?
* Perceptual fluency explanation: average
(“prototypical”) and more symmetrical faces are easier to process, and ease of processing is associated with feelings of pleasantness
* Evolutionary explanation: indicators of reproductive fitness: capacity to pass
on one’s genes to next generation
– Pronounced asymmetry may be indicative of issues during prenatal
development (e.g., injuries in utero, infectious disease experienced by the
mother)
– Declining health in macaques associated with declines in facial symmetry
(Little et al., 2012)
– Some evidence that facial symmetry is linked to better health in humans as
well (Thornhill & Gangestad, 2005)
Women’s bodies
* Waist-to-hip ratio = .70
– Signal of fertility, better
physical health
Men’s bodies
* Waist-to-hip-ratio= .90
– Also linked to better physical
health
* Shoulder-to-hip ratio = 1.2
* Height
* Signals of strength and status
SEX DIFFERENCES
IN MATE PREFERENCE
Is there truth to the widely-held belief that,
when it comes to seeking a mate, men
prioritize youth & physical beauty, while
women prioritize status & wealth?
EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
* Minimal parental investment = least amount of time, energy, and resources
that a parent must expend to produce offspring
* For male members of the species: minimal time investment & biological cost
* For female members of the species: much greater investment of time &
resources
– Eggs are biologically more costly than sperm
– Pregnancy, producing a placenta, lactation, extended period of infertility
following childbirth
* Creates large asymmetry in minimal parental investment of male & female
members of the species à different adaptive problems & strategies
MALE ADAPTIVE STRATEGY
* Problem: reproductive success
primarily limited by availability of
fertile mates
* Solution: may have evolved
preference for females possessing
indicators of fertility
FEMALE ADAPTIVE STRATEGY
* Also need to secure fertile mates with good genes
* BUT invest much more, so they should:
– Be more selective than males
– Prefer males that can best ensure survival of offspring
* Females may select mates based on their ability to provide resources to
potential offspring
* May need to make trade-offs
* In humans, women may view such characteristics as social status, wealth,
intelligence, ability, and ambition as attractive
EVIDENCE?
* A lot of early research relied on self-reported ratings
or rankings
* Which attributes do you find appealing in a potential partner? (Buss & Barnes, 1986)
– Most attributes rated similarly by men & women
– Men valued physical appearance more highly, women value characteristics related to resource acquisition
* Difference replicated across different cultures
(Buss, 1989)
STRUCTURAL POWERLESSNESS &
GENDER ROLE SOCIALIZATION
* Critique: evidence that men and women have different preferences for
potential mates may be due to social (rather than innate, evolved) factors
(Wendy & Eagly, 2002)
* For instance, across cultures women may find status and resources attractive
in men because women have less access to status and resources
* Traditional socialization practices maintain & support these differences
* The two hypotheses not fundamentally incompatible: no reason we should
not expect differential socialization of the young according to evolutionary
view
* In cultures where there is greater gender
equality, women place less importance
on a man’s status and resources
* However, gender equality does not affect
importance placed on female
attractiveness
NECESSITY OR LUXURY?
LI ET AL. 2002
* When rating individual traits, assume unlimited “mating budget”
– May focus on ”luxuries” while ignoring “necessities”
* In real life, evaluate a collection of traits & have to make trade-offs
* What happens if choices are constrained?
* Asked Ps to “design” ideal marriage partner
* Spend “mate dollars” on various characteristics
– E.g., physically attractive, income, creative, kind, intelligent, work ethic,
interesting, romantic, sense of humour
* Can select a decile level (0-10) for each characteristic, each decile costs 1 mate
dollar
– E.g., partner in 80th percentile of phys. attractiveness = $8
* Manipulated size of available budget
RESULTS
What do people spend most “mate dollars” on when on a limited budget?
Women:
* Income (17%; ~6x as much as men) & intelligence (21% of budget) (Study 1)
* Social status (27%; ~1.5x as much as men) & kindness (26%) (Study 2)
Men:
* Physical attractiveness (21%; ~2x as much as women) & intelligence (16%)
(Study 1)
* Physical attractiveness (31%; ~1.5x as much as women) & kindness (27%)
* Suggests men and women differ in the fundamental screening criteria they
use
– Physical attractiveness more important for men, resources more important
for women
* Kindness and intelligence necessities for both
STATED VS. ACTUAL PREFERENCES
* Is what people say they care about actually what they care about?
– Sprecher, 1989
* Male & female undergrads presented with different kinds of information
about potential romantic partners (e.g., physical appearance, personality,
earning potential), then:
– Rate how attracted to each person
– Estimate how much each type of information affected your attraction
ratings
SPRECHER, 1989
* Men believed appearance played important role for them, women believed
more affected by earning potential
* Actual largest predictor for both men and women: physical attractiveness
* But still a very artificial study design, very limited amount of information
* Do partner preferences predict evaluations in real-life contexts as well as they
do in hypothetical contexts?
* Meta-analysis = a study of many
studies
– Pool across large number of
studies looking at the same thing
in order to:
* Obtain more reliable effect
estimate &
* Examine sources of
discrepancies
* Eastwick et al., 2014:
– Meta-analysis of 97 studies involving romantic evaluations of a partner
(either initial attraction contexts like speed-dating or established
relationships)
– Evaluations generally more positive for more attractive partners, and
partners with better earning potential
– No difference by sex
* Physical attractiveness: men r=.43, women r=.40
* Earning prospects: men r=.09, women r=.12
SHORT-TERM VS. LONG-TERM
MATING STRATEGIES
* Because of the asymmetry in levels of minimal parental investment & risk,
males more likely to pursue short-term mating strategies
* BUT both males & females can both shift between short-term and long-term
mating strategies when conditions are suitable (i.e., benefits outweigh costs)
(Buss & Schmidt, 1993)
* Both men AND women likely to prioritize attractiveness in short-term
relationships (Meltzer et al., 2014)
* Partners’ resources are unimportant if you aren’t going to see that person
again but can ”grab” better genes for your offspring
* Sex differences in prioritization of attractiveness more evident in long-term
relationships
HORMONES & MATE PREFERENCES
* Other research has focused on whether ovulatory shifts in heterosexual
women affect mate preferences
* Hypothesis: women will show preference for putative cues of male fitness
(e.g., masculinized faces) during the high-fertility ovulatory phase of their
menstrual cycle (high estradiol, low progesterone), & preference for cues of
prosociality (e.g., feminized faces) at other points in the menstrual cycle
(Gildersleeve et al., 2014)
FINDINGS
* Early studies found support for the hypothesis that women show stronger
preference for masculinized faces during high fertility phase
– Most pronounced for partnered women assessing men’s attractiveness for
hypothetical, short-term relationships (Penton-Voak et al., 1999)
* Since replicated; similar findings obtained for other fitness cues (e.g., body &
vocal masculinity, body odours)
* Also evidence that male partners may pick on signs of female fertility
– E.g., increased mate guarding, positive attention when partners ovulating
(Gangestad et al., 2000)
DEBATE & CONTROVERSIES
* Jones, Hahn, & Debruine, 2019
– Small, underpowered studies, widespread use of self-report for menstrual
cycle data (potentially unreliable)
– Mixed findings for studies correlating estradiol/progesterone levels with
masculinity preferences
– Theoretical challenge: rates of extra-pair paternity are generally very low
– But there is evidence that ovulatory phase increases women’s sexual
motivation more broadly
INTERIM SUMMARY
* Evidence that may be “hardwired” to find certain features attractive
– Suggests evolutionary explanation
* Is there a difference between what men and women want?
– Complicated
– May depend on how you pose the question, the kind of relationship the
individual is looking for, gender equality in a given society, potentially other
factors (e.g., age)
– Stated preference may not always translate to actual mate choice (more on
that later)
“WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL IS GOOD” BIAS
* Another way in which physical attractiveness is
powerful
* Tend to assume that physically attractive people
possess other desirable qualities
– E.g., kinder, more sensitive, more trustworthy,
more likely to be successful (Dion, Berscheid, &
Walster, 1972)
WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?
One line of thought: ubiquitous cultural stereotypes (ex: Disney princesses vs. villains)
WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL IS GOOD BECAUSE
WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL IS DESIRED
* Lemay, Clark, & Greenberg, 2010:
1. Beauty is an intrinsic reward
* Feel more positively when interacting (or expecting to interact) with
attractive targets (Garcia et al., 1991; Pataki & Clark, 2004)
* Overlap in brain regions reactive to physically attractive faces & rewards like
food and money (O’Doherty et al., 2003)
2. We generally want to approach rewarding stimuli
* E.g., more likely to initiate conversations with attractive individuals (Garcia et
al., 1991), feel more committed to attractive partners (Sangrador & Yela, 2000)
3. Through projection, perceive attractive targets as possessing attributes
compatible with our approach goals
* “We see what we want to see”
(see slide 56)
RESULTS
* What comes first: desire to bond or perceptions of positive interpersonal
qualities?
* Data better fit to motivated cognition view (although limitations to this kind
of statistical approach)
BEHAVIOURAL CONFIRMATION (self-fulfilling prophecy)
* Recall that we not only see what we want to see, but also act in ways that
make our expectations come true
* Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977:
– Male “perceivers” interacted by phone with female “targets”
– Experimental manipulation: perceivers led to believe target either was or
was not physically attractive
– Tape recording of the interaction rated by outside observers
* Men (perceivers):
– Before interaction: formed more positive
impressions of the target when they believed
her to be attractive
– During interaction: behaved more positively
towards “attractive” targets
* Women (targets):
– Rated by observers as more sociable, poised,
warm, outgoing, etc. when interacting with a man who thought she was attractive
- People find find those they like
more physically attractive than
those they don’t like (Kniffin &
Wilson, 2004)
– Compare stranger vs. nonstranger ratings - Face preferences reflect desired
personality (Little et al., 2006)
LITTLE ET AL., 2006
Step 1 - Ask Ps 1) which personality traits they find attractive in partner, and 2) which
faces they find attractive
Step 2 - Create composite faces of the 15 faces most attractive to those expressing
highest desire for a trait and 15 faces attractive to those expressing lowest
desire for the trait
Step 3 - Ask new set of participants to make personality judgments based on faces
ARE SOME NON-PHYSICAL TRAITS
MORE DESIRABLE THAN OTHERS? - Little et al., 2006
– Some traits more highly desired on average than others: warm, easy-going,
responsible
– But also individual variability in desired traits - Less variability for some traits than others (smaller standard deviations)—
mostly everybody agrees that they want somebody warm
SIMILARITY
- 1,000 married couples provided information about themselves on 88
characteristics (Burgess & Wallin, 1953)
– More similar on 66 / 88 traits compared to pairs paired at random - Directionality?
- Similarity predicts attraction for people we don’t know (or with whom we are
newly acquainted) (e.g., Newcomb, 1961; Byrne et al., 1970)
WHY IS SIMILARITY ATTRACTIVE?
* Validation for our interests , beliefs,
& opinions
* Shared activities
* We expect those who are similar to
us to be more likely to like us
* We can better predict the behavior
of similar others
WHAT KINDS OF SIMILARITY?
* Demographic similarity
– Age, race, education, religion, etc.
* Attitudes & values
* Personality
* Link between similarity & attraction seems to be stronger for attitudes/values
& some demographic characteristics than for personality
– As we saw, some personality traits more uniformly desirable than others
SIMILARITY & SATISFACTION
* Similarity between partners’ personalities
explains only small amount of variation in
satisfaction (Dyrenforth et al., 2010)
* Having a partner with desirable personality
traits (e.g., agreeableness, conscientiousness,
low neuroticism) may be more important than
matching (Weidman et al., 2017)
* Couples similar on unappealing traits less
successful than couples who are less alike on
these traits (Cuperman & Ickes, 2009)
Do opposites attract?
NO
Why we think they do:
DO OPPOSITES ATTRACT?
* Perception vs. reality
– Perceptions of similarity may be more important for liking than objective
similarity (Tidwell et al., 2013)
* Discovering dissimilarities can take time
* May pursue partners that represent our ideal selves
* Dissimilarity may decrease over time
* Some types of similarity more important than others
* Matching is a broad process
COMPLEMENTARITY
* Perhaps we are attracted to people who possess the qualities we lack
– E.g., social + quiet, take charge + easy going
* Little support for this idea (Buss, 1985)
– E.g., introverts are not more attracted to extraverts (Hendrick & Brown, 1971)
– Members of egalitarian couples happier than more “traditional” couples
* May help explain results of some studies showing higher satisfaction in
gay and lesbian couples (Coontz, 2020)
INDIVIDUAL CONSTRUALS
* No gender differences in preference for a partner with a “sense of humour”,
but men do not rate funny women more highly
* Different interpretations of what it means to “have a sense of humour”
* Men like women who laugh at their jokes; women like men who make them
laugh (Bressler, Martin, & Balshine, 2006)
DOES “PLAYING HARD TO GET” PAY OFF?
RECIPROCITY
RECIPROCITY
* We like people more if they know they
like us (e.g., Backman & Secord, 1959)
* Aronson & Linder, 1965
– Ps paired with a confederate to work on
a task
– Overheard either positive or critical
evaluation of themselves
– Report more liking for confederate after
positive evaluation
REWARDS OF BELONGING
* Recall that belonging has historically been essentially to our survival
* Are there biological mechanisms that positively reinforce belonging?
* Hsu et al. 2014
– PET study (detects changes in neurochemical activity)
– 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
– And the stronger the activation, the more desire to interact with that person
BUT SELECTIVITY MATTERS TOO
* Highest liking when confederate’s evaluations went from negative à positive
– Although rated confederate more positively (e.g., as ”kinder”) in consistently
positive condition
* If uniformly positive, could be that they like everybody
* We want to feel that the other likes us specifically (selectivity)
* See this in romantic attraction contexts too
EASTWICK ET AL., 2007
* Speed-dating study
* When a participant uniquely desired a particular partner, partner tended to
reciprocate desire & feel more chemistry with the participant
* When a participant tended to desire many partners, partners experienced less
desire for & chemistry with participant
– Mediated by perceived unselectivity—suggests that this is something
people can pick up on 4 min conversation!
MANAGING RISK (hard to get part 2)
MANAGING RISK
* Generally, do not simply pursue the most attractive option
* Matching phenomenon = couples tend to be similar on attractiveness
(Feingold, 1988)
* Balance assessment of reward & risks (rejection)
BERNSTEIN, 1983
* Ps participating in “movie rating” exercise
* Setting:
– Two tables, each with two chairs and a screen
– One chair at one of the tables is occupied by a very attractive confederate
* Two conditions:
– Low ambiguity: same movie on both screens
– High ambiguity: different movie
* Much more likely to sit next to confederate in different movie condition (and it wasn’t about the movie)
WHAT ABOUT UNREQUITED LOVE?
* Generally, seem to strive to maximize rewards & minimize costs
* How to explain unrequited love (love that is not reciprocated)?
* 80% of college participants had experienced
unrequired love
* 3 factors predict intensity:
– Perceived potential value of relationship with
the person
– Perceived probability of striking up a
relationship
– Perceived benefits to self of loving the person,
even if it is not reciprocated
CULTURAL SCRIPTS
* Cultural depictions where
would-be lover persists & wins in
the end abound
* Fewer depictions from the
target’s perspective—sense of
“scriptlessness” (Baumeister,
Wotman, & Stillwell, 1993)
– May struggle to figure out how
to act
- Both rejectors & pursuers have sense of emotional interdependence & feel like
victims, struggle to understand each other - Pursuer:
– Situation as high-stake gamble
– Look back on experience with mix of positive & negative emotion
– Feel that they had been led on & communication was unclear - Rejector:
– No-win situation
– Uniformly negative in their accounts
– See themselves as morally innocent but still feel guilty
– Reluctance to cause pain may be misconstrued as ”mixed signals” (Folkes,
1982)
SO, SHOULD YOU PLAY HARD TO GET?
* Want to communicate that you’re selectively hard to get
* Don’t be mean to prospective partners
* Realize that prospective partners may be wary of rejection & incurring high
costs
* Within a relationship, want to be reliable & steady to foster sense of security in
your partner
– Ambiguity is bad for your partner and bad for your relationship
DO WE KNOW WHAT
WE WANT?
KNOWING WHAT WE WANT
* Assumption that partner preferences predict actual partner choice
– Online dating sites, matchmaking services, even some of the research we’ve
discussed
* Is this assumption warranted?
– Traits that Ps rate as important in ideal partner do not predict actual
attraction in speed dating event (Eastwick & Finkel, 2008)
– People often disregard declared dealbreakers in the context of a broader
relationship dynamic (Joel & Charlot, 2022)
CONTEXT AFFECTS ATTRACTION
* Preferences feel like stable part of
our identity
* But attraction can depend on
where we encounter potential
partner
* Capilano Suspension Bridge Study
(Dutton & Aron, 1974)
* Misattribution of arousal = attributing physiological arousal (e.g.,
sympathetic nervous system activation) to the wrong source
PROMISE OF ONLINE DATING
* Online dating platforms (e.g., Match.com) claim
to have sophisticated algorithms that can match
you with a perfect partner based on the large
amount of data they collect
* How believable are such claims?
– Samantha Joel and colleagues (2017) took a
closer look
* In her own words…
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
- Researchers have focused on specific factors that predict attraction on
average
– Proximity/familiarity, individual differences incl. physical attractiveness,
similarity, reciprocity - Some factors that draw us to others may be intrinsically rewarding (e.g.,
physical attractiveness, being liked) - But also engage in motivated cognition (see what we want to see)
- Contextual factors can also affect attraction
- Interpersonal chemistry is an emergent property of dyadic interactions
- Attraction can be a powerful force that draws people together, but the forces
that initially attract two people together are not necessarily the same ones
that keep them together over time
