Unit 9: Attraction and Close Relationships Flashcards
Describe the need for affiliation.
The need for affiliation is a fundamental human motive. It is a desire to establish and maintain many rewarding interpersonal relationships. Individuals differ in the strength of their need for affiliation and are motivated to establish and maintain an optimum balance of social contact.
Define social anxiety.
Social anxiety is when people are so worried about how they come across to other people that they experience intense feelings of discomfort in situations that invite public scrutiny.
What is the relationship between affiliation and stress?
In times of stress people are strongly compelled to seek the company of others, even strangers. It has been theorized that stress increases the desire to affiliate when being with others will help to reduce the negative impact of the stressful situation. People are adaptively motivated to affiliate with other people who can help us to cope with an impending threat.
Define loneliness.
Loneliness is a feeling of deprivation about existing social relations. It is triggered by a discrepancy between the level of social contact that a person has and the level of social contact that they want to have.
What factors are associated with loneliness?
Loneliness is associated with times of transition or disruption such as moving or after a romantic breakup. It also declines over the course of adulthood until declining health in old age inhibits engagement in social activities.
What coping strategies do people use to combat loneliness?
- trying harder to be friendlier to other people
- distraction and taking their mind off the problem with activities like reading or watching TV
- increasing efforts to succeed in other area of life
- seeking new ways to meet people
- improving physical appearance
- talking to someone (e.g. friend, relative, therapist) about the problem
- drug and alcohol use to cope with feelings of loneliness
What role do rewards play in interpersonal attraction?
People are attracted to other people with whom it seems possible to have a rewarding relationship. Rewards can be direct (e.g. being provided with attention, support, money, status, information, and other valuable commodities) or indirect (e.g. when it feels good to be with someone who is beautiful, smart, or funny).
What is the relationship between proximity and interpersonal attraction?
Physical proximity is the best predictor of whether two people will get together.
Through what process does the relationship between proximity and interpersonal attraction develop?
Proximity increases the frequency of contact and the more often people are exposed to a stimulus, the more positively they evaluate that stimulus (called the mere exposure effect).
What are the objective factors that influence perceptions of beauty?
- there is agreement between children, adults, men, and women from the same and different cultures when asked to rate the attractiveness of faces
- agreement about what constitutes an attractive body (0.7 WHR for women; a tapered V-shape waist for men)
- women have a preference for height
- preference for smooth skin, a pleasant expression, youthfulness, and a direct gaze
- people prefer computerized averaged facial composites to individual faces because they are more prototypically face-like and therefore seem more familiar
- preference for symmetrical faces
- babies exhibit a nonverbal preference for faces considered attractive by adults when they are too young to have learned about cultural standards of beauty
What are the subjective factors that influence perceptions of beauty?
- different cultures enhance their beauty in different ways
- ideals vary when it comes to bodies
- standards of beauty change over time, from one generation to the next
- in research studies social psychologists have found that perceptions of beauty can be inflated or deflated by various circumstances.
Why are people attracted to beautiful people?
- it is inherently rewarding to be in the company of people who are aesthetically appealing
- a bias to believe that beauty is associated with other desirable qualities (what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype)
Describe the what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype.
The what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype is the belief that physically attractive individuals also possess desirable personality characteristics. Good looking people are judged to be smart, successful, happy, well-adjusted, socially skilled, confident, and assertive, but also vain. However, the traits associated with this stereotype differ between individualistic and collectivist cultures depending on what is considered attractive in each culture.
Describe the benefits of being physically beautiful.
People who are good-looking are more popular, more sexually experienced, and more socially skilled.
Describe the costs of being physically beautiful.
- can’t always tell if the attention and praise received from others are due to their talent or just their good looks
- pressure to maintain one’s appearance, which can sometimes place an unhealthy emphasis on nutrition and exercise and in severe cases can lead to eating disorders
How do similarity and dissimilarity influence our attraction to people during initial encounters?
People tend to associate with others who are similar to themselves. This includes sharing the same opinions, interests and values. Rosenbaum argues that similarity does not spark attraction; rather dissimilarity triggers repulsion and the desire to avoid someone. Byrne and colleagues developed a two-step model that takes into account the influence of similarity and dissimilarity. First, people avoid associating with others who are dissimilar. Next, among the people who remain, they are drawn to the individuals who are most similar to them. Low similarity sparks indifference while high similarity sparks attraction. People continue to interact with others with whom they have high similarity/attraction.
Describe the matching hypothesis.
The matching hypothesis is the proposition that people are attracted to others who are similar in physical attractiveness.
Is there any research support for the complementarity hypothesis, that is “opposites attract”?
No, complementarity does not influence attraction.
What is the role of reciprocity in relationships?
Reciprocity refers to a mutual exchange between what we give and receive. When a relationship is characterized by reciprocity it is in a state of balance.
What is the hard-to-get effect?
The hard-to-get-effect is the tendency to prefer people who are highly selective in their social choices over those who are more readily available. People are turned off by others who are nonselective (have no standards) as well as others who are too selective (they are arrogant). Additionally, people are turned off by people who reject them, either because they are committed to someone else or because they are not interested.