L9 - Attraction Flashcards
How do we know we are affiliative animals?
- Study paged teens at random points in day
- Ppts write whether they were alone or with others
- Result: around others more than alone - even now, through social media
What is a study showing affiliation and ostracism?
- Computer simulation of people kicking a football and passing to ppt, passed less and less to ppt & feelings hurt due to FOMO
- Told it was a computer and they still feel hurt
- The part of the brain that feels pain lights up during the experiment suggesting being excluded hurts. Pain response seen through pupils
- Diminished when rationalising via frontal cortex
What is loneliness?
- Subjective discomfort when social relations lack important features
- People want to affiliate because of FOMO
What is aloneness?
- Objective state of being apart from others
- More likely to feel lonely when alone but not always
When would we feel lonely?
- Emotional: lacking attachment figure
- Social: lack sense of social integration
- Higher amongst young, old = few but high quality friendships
- Alienation: Feeling apart from dom culture
What is a study about affiliation and pain?
- Studying learning with electric shocks
- Some ppts expected to get painful shocks, others told shocks are mild
- Checking whether people want to be with others/alone before shocks
- Painful condition = sit with other confederates
Why do fearful people seek company?
- Distraction: avoidance of thinking of pain
- Social Comparison: looking at how others react e.g maybe I am overreacting
- Mostly social comparison as you moderate social arousal and affect.
What are other discoveries for affiliation?
- People prefer to affiliate with others who have been through the same situation
- Individual differences
- Attachment style dictates how we react to env
What is a factor that makes people like you?
- People closest to you/ see everyday
- Feel positive affect to people we anticipate on seeing a lot
What was a study on propinquity?
- Participants watched videos of people who were/not prospective dates
- People like prospective more
- Like them more because you know you will interact with them.
What is the role of proximity in affiliation?
- Proximity = easy availability
- Increases familiarity
- Linked to similarity
- Brain has heuristic for being around individuals who are similar to you
What is a study that shows the role of familiarity in liking?
- Female confederates attend class 1/5/10/15 times
- Students liked frequent confed most
- Linear trend: more you see = more you like = Because familiar
Why is familiarity useful in liking?
- Fam = comfort/safety = perception of similarity
- Can evaporate quickly after talking to people
- e.g men fishing speaking diff languages, learnt each other langauges and found they hated each other because of diff values
Study showing similarity in liking
- Students assigned to dis/similar roommate
- Sim more likely to like and end up as lifelong friends = longitudinal
- ANOTHER STUDY:
- Ppts read attitude questionnaire of people with dis/similar attitudes
- Ppts liked respondents who reported similar attitudes more
- These were mostly aesthetic preferences but this is used as a proxy for other values = feel drawn to person if they share a niche with you
Why is similarity useful in liking?
- Rewarding: validating e.g other people like it = good
- Aids cognitive consistency
- Expect success with others who are similar to us
