Chapter 9: Interpersonal Attraction Flashcards
Argument for the need to belong
Relationships help individuals and their offspring survive, thus increasing the likelihood of passing on one’s genes.
It seems that we satisfy our need for friendship with a limited number of close friends, and once that need is satisfied, we don’t continue to seek other relationships.
Harlow Monkey Study 1959
Aim: The need to belong in nonhumans
Procedures: Harlow raised baby rhesus monkeys without contact with other rhesus monkeys but with access to two mother surrogates. One prop was covered in cloth where the monkeys could go for comfort when feeling threatened; the other was made out of wire and could provide milk when the monkeys were hungry.
Findings: The monkeys preferred the mother who could provide comfort to the one who could provide food. Still, the monkeys raised with these mothers, but otherwise in isolation, were in no way normal when they reached adolescence. As adolescents, they were highly fearful, couldn’t interact normally with their peers, and engaged in inappropriate sexual behaviors.
Communal relationship
A relationship in which the individuals feel a special responsibility for one another and give and receive according to the principle of need. Such relationships are often long-term. Examples are those between family members and between close friends.
Exchange relationship
A relationship in which individuals feel little responsibility toward one another; giving and receiving are governed by concerns about equity and reciprocity. Such relationships are usually short-term. Examples are relationships between workers and supervisors in a business organization.
Rewards related to interpersonal relationships
People like and gravitate toward those who provide them with rewards.
People tend to like other people who make them feel good.
Social exchange theory
A theory based on the idea that how people feel about a relationship depends on their assessments of its costs and rewards.
Typically, people prefer relationships in which the rewards exceed the costs.
Comparison level
Expectations people have about what they should get out of a relationship
A standard of social exchange theory
Comparison level for alternatives
Expectations people have about they they can get out of available alternative relationships
A standard of social exchange theory
Equity theory
The idea that people are motivated to pursue fairness or equity, in their relationship. A relationship is considered equitable when the ratio of rewards to costs is similar for both partners.
Attachment theory
The idea that early attachments with parents and other caregivers can shape relationships for a person’s whole life.
Ainsworth Study
Aim: Attachment styles
Procedures: Using an experimental procedure that came to be known as “the strange situation,” Ainsworth had infants and their caregivers enter an unfamiliar room containing many interesting toys. The infant explored the room and began to play with some of the toys with the caregiver present. After a few minutes, a stranger walked in. The stranger remained in the room, and the caregiver quietly left . Returning after three minutes, the caregiver greeted and comforted the infant if the infant was upset.
Findings: Three attachment styles secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent.
Anxiety dimension of attachment
A facet of attachment that captures the degree to which a person is worried about rejection and abandonment by relationship partners.
Avoidance dimension of attachment
A facet of attachment that captures the degree to which a person is comfortable with intimacy and dependence on relationship partners.
Festinger, Schachter & Back 1950
Aim: Proximity
Procedure: The housing project consisted of 17 ten-unit apartment
buildings that were isolated from other residential areas of the city. The incoming students were randomly assigned to their residences, and few of them knew one another beforehand.
The investigators asked each resident to name the three people in the housing project with whom they socialized most often.
Functional distance
The influence of physical layout that encourages or inhibits certain activities, including contact between people.
Mere exposure effect
The idea that repeated exposure to a stimulus, such as an object or a person, leads to greater liking of the stimulus
Zajonc 1968 Study
Aim: the mere exposure effect
Procedure: Zajonc created a stimulus set of Turkish-sounding words
that was unfamiliar to his participants, such as kadirga, afworbu, and lokan a. Di fferent words within this set were then shown to participants 0, 1, 2, 5, 10, or 25 times. A fterward, the participants indicated the extent to which they thought each word referred to something good or bad.
Findings: Th e more times participants saw a given word, the more they assumed it referred to
Cross, Halcomb & Matter 1967 Rat Study
Aim: The mere exposure effect
Procedure: One group of rats was raised in an environment where selections of Mozart’s quintessentially classical music played for 12
hours each day. A second group was exposed to an analogous schedule of atonal music by the modern composer Schoenberg. The rats were then placed individually in a ri gged test cage: the rat’s presence on one side of the cage would trip a switch that caused
previously unheard selections of Mozart to play, and the rat’s presence on the other side would generate new selections of Schoenberg.
Findings: Rats raised on a musical diet of Mozart moved signi ficantly more often to the Mozart side of the cage, whereas those raised on a diet of Schoenberg moved to the Schoenberg side.
What might the reason mere repeated exposure leads to liking?
- People find it easier to perceive and cognitively process familiar stimuli: the processing of familiar stimuli is more “
What are determinants of attraction?
Proximity
Similarity
Physical attractiveness
Burgess & Wallin 1953 Study
Aim: Similarity in personal characteristics also predicts romantic attention.
Procedures: The members of 1,000 engaged couples rated themselves on 88 characteristics. When compared with the ratings of “random couples” created by pairing individual members of different couples.
Findings: The average similarity of the engaged couples was greater on 66 of 88 characteristics than the similarity of “random couples.” The similarity of engaged couples was strongest for demographic characteristics and physical characteristics and less strong for personality traits.
Newcomb Study on Similarity
Aim: Individuals are thrown together for an extended period of time showing the link between similarity and attraction.
Procedures: An unacquainted group of male college students live for a year in a large house, rent-free, in exchange for spending a few hours each week filling out surveys. In response to one of the survey questions, the students indicated how much they liked each of their housemates.
Findings: To an increasing degree throughout the 15-week study, as the students got to know one another better and better, their liking for each other was predictable based on how similar they were.
Why is similarity important for attraction?
Similarity leads to consensual validation.
We feel more certain of being liked by people who are similar to us.
Similarity enables more rewarding interactions, and it allows us to comfortably expand ourselves with experiences.
Complementarity
The tendency for people to seek out others with characteristics that are different from, and that complement, their own.
Status exchange hypothesis
Romantic attraction increases when two individuals offer each other elevated status where they themselves are lacking
Halo effect
The common belief (accurate or not) that attractive individuals possess a host of positive qualities beyond their physical appearance.
Snyder, Tanke, & Berschied 1977 Study
Aim: physically attractive people’s impressions
Procedures: Male participants had a get-acquainted phone conversation with a woman who they were led to
believe, based on a photo provided by the experimenter, was more or less attractive. The women in the chosen photos were quite attractive for half the participants and less attractive for the others. When only the woman’s recorded comments from the conversations were later played to other participants, who weren’t shown the woman’s photo (and thus had no preconceptions about her appearance).
Findings: They rated a woman who had
talked to a man who thought she was more attractive as being warmer and more socially poised than a woman who had talked to a man who thought she was less attractive.
Reproductive fitness
The capacity to pass one’s genes on to subsequent generations
What is the evolutionary perspective on attraction?
We’ve evolved to prefer people whose physical features signify reproductive fitness
What are the gender differences in mate prefences?
Women ought to be more selective in their choice of mates due to their greater investment in offspring.
Schmitt & International Sexuality Description Project Study , 2003
Aim: The idea that women are more selective in their choice of mate while men aren’t.
Procedures: In a cross-cultural study with more than 16,000 participants from societies all over the globe, men and women were asked, “Ideally, how
many different sexual partners would you like to have?” over various time intervals ranging from one month to the rest of their lives.
Findings: For every time interval and in all regions of the world, men expressed a desire for a greater number of sexual partners.
What do men want in a mate?
They want mates who are fertile which usually means youth.
Men should be drawn to younger women and the cues associated with youth.
What do women want in a mate?
Women should be attracted to men who either possess material resources or the characteristics associated with acquiring them: ambition,
Critiques of the Evolutionary theories on gender differences
Women might be concerned with material needs and finding mates with resources is one way of meeting those needs rather than a choice motivated by a biological impulse.
Companionate love
The love we typically experience with friends and family members
Compassionate love
Bonds that focus on monitoring and responding to another person’s needs.
Romantic love
Love associated with intense emotion and sexual desire
Aron et al 1991 Study
Aim: Intimacy increases leading to their partner’s perspective into their own self-concept
Procedure: Married couples first rated 90 trait adjectives twice, once for how accurately they described themselves and then for how accurately they
described their spouse. A fter a brief distracter task, participants viewed each trait on a computer screen and
indicated as quickly as possible whether the trait was “like me” or “not like me.
Findings: Participants were faster to identify traits on which they were similar to their spouse and slower to ascribe traits to themselves that their partner didn’t also possess.
Investment model of commitment
A model of interpersonal relationships maintains there are three determinants that make partners more committed to each other: relationship satisfaction, few alternative partners, and investments in the relationship
Satisfaction as a determinant of enduring commitment
People have beliefs (accurate or not) about how satisfied they are likely to be in their relationship down the road and these beliefs affect their current level of relationship commitment
Alternative partners available as a determinant of enduring commitment
The fewer options a romantic partner has outside the relationship, the more committed that partner tends to feel and the more likely that partner is to remain in the relationship.
Investments in the relationship as a determinant of enduring commitment
People are more likely to remain in a relationship if they have invested heavily in it.
Perceived partner responsiveness
The degree to which people perceive their partners as being understanding, validating, and responsive to their needs
What are predictors of dissatisfaction and divorce?
Measures of personality and background
What are the four negative behaviors that are most harmful to relationships?
Criticism
Stonewalling
Defensiveness
Contempt
What are ways of creating stronger romantic bonds?
Capitalizing on the good
Being playful
Finding the good in partners
