Exam #2/ Chp #1/ Belonging & Attraction

Question 1

Why is belonging important?

Answer 1

• Strong, basic drive to form and maintain close social bonds
• Evolutionarily adaptive for humans: being able to function well in a group makes us better able to acquire resources, knowledge, and even physical protection that enhance survival
• Largest determinant of happiness and overall life satisfaction, across cultures

Question 2

What is social isolation a predictor of?

Answer 2

poor physical and mental health

Question 3

Lonely individuals have…

Answer 3

• Poorer sleep quality
• Higher rates of depression
• Lower immune function (higher rates of infections and slower wound healing)
• Higher rates of cardiovascular disease
• Higher rates of all cause mortality

Question 4

What do we need to feel like we belong?

Answer 4

• Regular social contact with others (groups can satisfy that need) – e.g., “I have a group of people with whom I regularly spend time”
• Close, mutually caring relationships with others (friends and lovers) – e.g., “There are people close to me in whom I can confide”
• Most people have both, but there are gender differences

Question 5

What are the gender differences in belonging?

Answer 5

• Men value group belonging more than women do, but value close relationships as much
• Women value close relationships more than they value groups
• THUS – Men need both to be non-lonely; women can “get by” with just close relationships

Question 6

What can social exclusion/rejection lead to?

Answer 6

Agression

Question 7

What can reduce aggressiveness from social rejection?

Answer 7

• However, in lab studies, even the smallest kindness (e.g., a kind word from the experimenter) wipes out post-rejection aggression (Twenge et al., 2007)
• Even thinking about the people who love you reduces aggressive and hostile thinking (Gardner et al., 2005

Question 8

Physiological and emotional effects of rejection:

Answer 8

• Drop in mood and self-esteem (remember the sociometer?)

- “Hurt” feelings

Question 9

Social pain & Physical pain

Answer 9

• Rejection activates the physical pain regions of the brain
• Social support (reduces social pain) reduces physical pain as well (Eisenberger et al,. 2011)
• Tylenol (vs. placebo) reduces social pain – less hurt feelings over 3 week period, less activity in pain regions following exclusion (DeWall et al., 2010)

Question 10

Cognitive effects of rejection

Answer 10

• Drop in problem solving ability/IQ

- Drop in self-regulation (less restraint for indulgent items, less ability to make yourself do good things)

Question 11

Why are cognitive effects apart of social rejection?

Answer 11

cognitive effects in part because resources are redirected toward potentially regaining acceptance/coping with rejection

Question 12

What things are increased cognitively after reaction?

Answer 12

• Increased attention to and memory for social information
• Increased behavioral mimicry (because subtly mimicking the behavior of others increases their liking for us)
• Increased accuracy in identifying social cues (facial expressions and vocal tones) and increased empathic accuracy (guessing what others are feeling and thinking)
• Increased regulation of OTHERS’ emotional states

Question 13

Who is most important for satisfying belonging needs?

Answer 13

Romantic partner

Question 14

Levinger’s 5 stages of romantic relationships

Answer 14

A is for Attraction: 
B  is for Building: 
C is for Continuance: 
D is for Deterioration:	
E is for Ending:

Question 15

The College Dance Study

Answer 15

• 100s of single college students ‘set up’ with dates at a dance by psychologists. Rated their dates at an intermission. . . .researchers had measures of intelligence, peer-rated attractiveness, personality scales, value and attitude scales, and listings of goals, interests and hobbies
• physical attractiveness was the only trait to indicate a 2nd date

Question 16

What do we look for in a mate?

Answer 16

• Intelligence
• Physical Attractiveness
• Wealth/Status
• Personality (e.g. extraversion, kindness, etc.)
• Sense of humor
• Shared values and attitudes
• Shared interests and goals

Question 17

Why is physical attractiveness so important?

Answer 17

Dion: The Beauty=Good Stereotype

Question 18

The Beauty=Good Stereotype

Answer 18

Beautiful people…

• are seen as happier, coming from a better home, smarter, likely to have a good future
• ACTUALLY achieve better educational attainment, income, and occupational prestige
• have their bad acts excused by teachers, judges and juries
• have more positive attention paid to them by their parents.
• are perceived as better partners during early relationships (luckily perceptions of beauty change with time)

Question 19

Pretty vs less pretty photo of child

Answer 19

Pretty vs less pretty photo of child in a file about a behavioral event into which one child pushes another child on the playground. Behavior judged by education majors (future teachers) –playful if pretty, hostile if less pretty

Question 20

Three lines of evidence for universal, objective beauty

Answer 20

• Inter-rater reliability within and across cultures.
• Inter-rater reliability between adults and 2-month old babies (babies will ‘work harder’ to see beautiful people).
• Objective correlates of beauty ratings.

Question 21

Objective correlates of beauty ratings.

Answer 21

For faces of both sexes; symmetry, prominent cheekbones, and broad smiles. Face symmetry correlated with # relationship partners

Question 22

Symmetry in biological world -good

Answer 22

• Overgeneralization of need to gauge age and health/illness.
• Harmless irregularities in facial features of perfectly normal people (e.g., asymmetries) can mildly resemble those associated with mental or physical illness in our evolutionary past–lowering attractiveness ratings - and the application of “beauty=good” positive attributes

Question 23

There are also cross-cultural (including cross-temporal) differences in

Answer 23

(i) beauty enhancement practices, and (ii) judgments of attractive body build (within some biological constraints, like waist/hip ratio for women).

Question 24

cultural differences in the content of beauty=good stereotype

Answer 24

Independent cultures: successful, smart, effective

Interdependent cultures: kind, sensitive, honest

Question 25

sex differences in attraction

Answer 25

Men: attractiveness, younger
Women: status/wealth, older

Question 26

Similarities in attraction for men and women

Answer 26

BOTH genders rank positive personality characteristics highest and equally (e.g., kind, smart, etc), we’re not totally shallow

Question 27

Why are there sex differences in attraction?

Answer 27

Evolution: investment in offspring’s survival –fertility cues for men and provider cues for women. Sex rank-order differences in attractiveness vs wealth are consistent in 37 cultures
-Social Role Theory

Question 28

Social Role Theory

Answer 28

these are the roles developed for men and women, thus not genetic presets but rather adaptive preferences - should see magnification or attenuation of differences as function of culture. When roles are more constrained, sex differences in ranking widens

Question 29

Evidence for social roles

Answer 29

-Eagly, Eastwick, & Johanneson-Schmidt (2009) examined preferences for status/wealth in a mate when heterosexual students imagined themselves in various future roles, or gave no instructions (control)
-Found gender differences wiped out when changed expected roles.
-Also found that preferences for wealth vs homemaking skills correlated
with expected future role –in BOTH sexes. More wife expected to provide, the less men valued homemaking skills in a spouse, and the more women did. Gender differences in preferences reflect expected complementarity of future roles.

Question 30

Similarity and Attractiveness

Answer 30

• Couples often similar in attractiveness, education, personality, and host of other features
• we find similarity appealing in and of itself! Strong experimental evidence that when people think they are similar to others, it enhances liking and attraction

Question 31

Economic model

Answer 31

We get the best we can

Question 32

Byrne’s Fake Questionnaire Study

Answer 32

perceived similarity = liking, strongest for attitudes (rational conscious system) but even get increased liking if similar in weird ways, like birth month or social security number (so our automatic/non-conscious system also likes similarity)

Question 33

Byrne’s Restaurant Date Study

Answer 33

couples who were randomly assigned to be told they were similar to one another (whether or not they were) sat closer together, made more eye contact, reported enjoying the date more

Question 34

Slotter’s self-change studies

Answer 34

The more romantically attracted you are to someone, the more you will change your own self-views to see yourself as similar to them (e.g., if they are artistic, suddenly you are more artistic).

Question 35

Propinquity

Answer 35

physical distance

Question 36

Festinger Westgate housing complex –who gets listed as friends?

Answer 36

-Distance matters (we are lazy)
-People on different floors tended not to become friends (2/3 listed people from same floor)
People in middle apartments were nominated as friends more often than those in end apartments
Those who lived near mailboxes or stairways were also more popular

Question 37

Why does distance matter?

Answer 37

-Repeated Exposure (Mere Exposure)

Question 38

Repeated Exposure (Mere Exposure)

Answer 38

In general, familiarity increases liking (exception – if only on paper or in profiles, more details = less liking).

Question 39

So in early interactions, should you talk about yourself OR listen to others?

Answer 39

Big effects for self-disclosure in early interactions: Increasing self-disclosure good for new relationships–and interestingly, learning about someone (having them disclose to you) leads to even higher levels of your liking for them than you disclosing to others