Exam 1 Flashcards
What factors influence attraction?
Proximity, physical attractiveness, similarity, reciprocity, environmental factors
Describe the Festinger, Schachter & Back (1950) study.
270 MIT students were randomly assigned to apartments. After a year, they were asked to name their 3 closest friends within the complex. 65% of friends named were from the same building.
Why is proximity so attractive?
It accentuates feelings:
- If person is disagreeable, proximity hurts
- If person is agreeable, proximity helps
It contributes to the mere exposure effect (Bornstein, 1989; Moreland & Beach, 1992)
Describe the mere exposure effect.
Repeated contact with someone usually increases our liking of them (Zajonc, 2001).
Describe the Moreland and Beach (1992) research.
They had college women attend certain classes either 15 times, 10 times, or 5 times during a semester. These women never talked to anyone and simply sat there, but they were present in the room frequently, sometimes, or rarely. Then at the end of the semester, the real students were given pictures of the women and asked for their reactions. The results were very clear: The more familiar the women were, the more the students were attracted to them. And they were all liked better than women the students had never seen at all.
Describe the Langlois, Ritter, Casey & Sawin (1995) research about babies and attractiveness.
Good looking babies had more affectionate and playful minders; less attractive babies received less attention because minders focused on other people or things.
Describe the Berscheid, Dion, Walster & Walster (1971) “Computer dance study”.
College students were measured on several items, including attractiveness, then randomly paired as a date for a dance. When students were asked if they wanted another date with their partner, attractiveness factored the most in saying yes to a second date.
Describe the Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid (1977) phone interaction study.
Different-gender pairs interact over the phone. Men were shown a false picture; half were of attractive women and half were of unattractive women. The conversations were recorded and rated by blind raters.
Women who were assigned a fake attractive photo were more friendly and sociable (because men behaved more friendly towards them); the opposite was true of unattractive photos.
Process is called behavioral confirmation. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
What skill do beautiful people have more than others?
Confidence, interpersonal skills, because they get more practice.
Explain the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype.
Attractive people are judged to be more sensitive, kink, interesting, strong, poised, modest, sociable, outgoing, exciting, sexually warm and responsive.
How do cultural differences affect the WIBIG stereotype?
The effect holds across cultures, but the contents of what is valued changes. For example, if interdependency is valued, beautiful people are considered more interdependent.
What is the effect of attractiveness on men’s social lives, especially with women?
Attractive women do get more dates, but plain women spend plenty of time interacting with men in group settings where others are present. In contrast, men’s looks are correlated with the number and length of the interactions they have with women.
Basically, ugly men are ostracized.
