Factors Affecting Attraction Flashcards
Self disclosure
What is it
- most people are careful about what they disclose, at least to begin with.
- used widely and effectively it really can help the course of true love run smoother
Self disclosure
What is social penetration theory
- focuses on how relationships develop
- relationships are a gradual process of revealing your inner self to someone
- romantic relationship- involves reciprocal exchange
- when one reveals personal information this shows that this person trusts the other
- to go further the other must reveal sensitive information
- as it goes on romantic partners penetrate more deeply into each other’s lives
- deeper understanding of each other
- basic feature of romantic relationship
Self disclosure
What is breadth and depth
Breadth- low risk information, outside of the onion- ‘finding out each other’s favourite colours’
Depth- high risk information, inside the onion- ‘I have a drinking problem’
Self disclosure
What happens at the starts of relationship according to breadth and depth theory
- at the start we disclose a lot of information about ourselves tends to be low risk
- this is informations we would reveal to anyone
- the breadth is small because this stage many topics are off limits in early stages of relationships
- if we reveal too much too soon we may get the response of ‘too much information’
Self disclosure
What do we need for a relationship to develop
- need an increase in breadth and depth but also need a reciprocal element to disclose
- this needs to be balanced otherwise the relationship won’t develop any further
Key evaluation research
- kito
- self report questionnaire to access the level of self-disclosure in American and Japanese students
- found that self-disclosure was significantly more common in romantic relationships than in same-sex and cross-sex friendships
- suggests that romantic relationships do have more depth than friendships
Evaluation of Kitos study
:( methodological issues
- people could lie on the questionnaires and write what they think they want you to write or might just answer the questions randomly
:) in America and Japan- more valid across cultures because there is less likely to be a culture bias which means that it can be applied to most cultures
Positives of self disclosure theory
- real life applications
- can help people who want to improve communication in their relationships
- study conducted 57% of gay men and women said that open,honest self disclosure was the main way they maintained their relationship
Negatives on self disclosure theory
- cultural differences
- research conducted shows that men/women in USA disclose significantly more than men/women in China
- suggests that this theory can’t be applied to all cultures because people in China are still in relationships even if they don’t disclose as much
- studies done on either all straight people or all gay people can’t be generalised to the other
- only a little of the majority
- when a relationship breaks down, couples negotiate and discuss the state of their deterioration
- these discussions involve deep self- disclosures
- yet these cant save the relationship
- might even contribute to the break down
- shows that not all meaningful conversations show depth
Physical attractiveness
- traits associated with attractiveness act as indications of good health
- choosing an attractive partner is the best way of ensuring a healthy partner and a healthy child
- health is important- partner needs to bare the child, good chance that genes will carry
What is the halo effect
- How one distinguishing feature (physical attractiveness) tends to have a disproportionate influence on our judgements of a persons attributes (personality)
- attractive people are often rated as kind, strong… Compared to unattractive people
- they assume that good looking people have these attributes which makes them more attractive to us so we behave positively towards them
- research has shown that physical attractive people gain many advantages, get lighter criminal sentences
What is the matching hypothesis
- people chose romantic partners who are roughly of similar attractiveness to each other
- to do this we have to make a judgement of ourselves first
- ideally we want a perfect partner but as it isn’t possible we compromise
- likely to become matched to somebody who most matches what we want
What is the matching hypothesis in stages
- the.p more socially desirable a person is (physical attractiveness) the more desirable they would expect a dating/marriage partner to be
- couples who are matched are more likely to have a happy relationship
- the comparison determines whether they will Pursue them (rate yourself and potential partner)
Key study for research supporting the matching hypothesis
- Murstein
- asked people to rate the attractiveness of other People
- some were genuine relationships, some were paired at random
- then compared the similarity in couples scores with the similarity of non-couple scores
- genuine couples had a much greater score
- suggests that people do the matching hypothesis
General evaluation
:( individual differences
- large differences in how important physical attractiveness is
- people like different things in people and everybody on the planet is different
:( cultural differences
- physical attractiveness is different across cultures
- females large eyes and small nose and high eyebrows are attractive by white, Hispanic and Asian males
- not found attractive by other cultures though
:( culturally pervasive
:( methodological issue
- sometimes it can depend on whether the women is wearing make up or not for men to find them attractive
- can look different on different days
