Chapter 14: Interpersonal Attraction

December 6, 2018 9:43 AM

The Need to Belong

- Do We Really Need to Belong?
○ Psychological need: A mechanism for regulating behavior to acquire the tangible
or intangible resources necessarily for survival and well-being.
○ Loneliness: The feeling that one is deprived of human social connections
○ Like hunger, the need to belong can be satisfied
○ Belonging promotes mental and physical health
○ Loneliness takes a toll on mental health
- Evolution and Belonging
○ People of all cultures share the need to belong
▪ Care deeply about forming and maintaining romantic bonds, parent-
offspring attachments, and close relations with siblings, friends, and group
members
○ Newborn infants instinctively engage other people
▪ They pay special attention to other people’s faces, and they delight in
mimicking others’ facial expressions
○ Social rejection activates the same stress response as physical pain
▪ Rejection sensitivity: A dispositional tendency to have an especially strong
fear of being rejected or evaluated negatively by others
○ Long-term relationships promote successful procreation and raising offspring

The Basics of Interpersonal Attraction

- Proximity: Like the One You’re With
○ Physical proximity is an important factors in developing relationships, although
its importance is tampered by social media
○ Propinquity effect: The increased likelihood of forming relationships with people
who are physically close by.
○ The original idea was that you can’t form a relationship with someone unless you
meet them, and the closer you are physically to someone else, the more likely you
are to meet and therefore form a relationship with him or her.
- The Reward Model of Liking
○ People like others whom they associate with positive feelings and dislike those
associated with negative feelings
○ Reward model of liking: Proposes that people like other people whom they
associate with positive stimuli and dislike people whom they associate with
negative stimuli.
○ Basically a classical conditioning model of liking, similar to the influences on
persuasion
▪ A new person begins as a relatively neutral stimulus. If exposure to the
person is temporally linked to a second stimulus you already like, the
positive feelings evoked by the second stimulus start to become evoked by
the person
- Others’ Attributes Can Be Rewarding
○ People like those who remind them of others they like
▪ Transference: A tendency to map on, or transfer, feelings for a person who
is known onto someone new who resembles that person in some way.
○ People like those with culturally desirable attributes
○ Self-reports of traits that people prefer often don’t predict their liking of people
they meet who have those traits
▪ Vast majority of this work assesses what traits people report or think they
like, not those that they actually like

Exam Notes Page 1

 like, not those that they actually like
- Attraction to Those Who Fulfill Needs
○ People tend to like others who fulfill their need for meaning and self-esteem.
Specifically those who:
▪ Are perceived as similar to the self
□ Perceived similarity increases attraction, attraction increases perceived
similarity
□ People who become friends, lovers, and spouses tend to be similar in
socioeconomic status, age, geographical location, ethnic identity,
looks, and personality
□ “Me-share” with others when we feel that we are the same kind of
person, but we “I-share” with others when we believe that our
subjective experiences of the world are the same, even if our
respective “Me’s” seem very different
▪ Reciprocate liking
□ If You Like Me, I’ll Like You
□ It’s hard not to feel a little better about someone who feeds your need
for self-esteem by approving of and warmly embracing you.
▪ Flatter them
□ Gain-loss theory: A theory of attraction that posits that liking is
highest for others when they increase their positivity toward you
over time

Physical Attractiveness
- The Importance of Physical Attractiveness
○ Sexual and aesthetic appeal do predict liking
○ Association with attractive people can bolster self-esteem
○ Attractive people are stereotypes to have positive traits
▪ Halo effect: A tendency to assume that people with one positive attribute
(e.g., who are physically attractive) also have other positive traits.
○ Western cultures people see beautiful people as happier, warmer, more dominant,
mature, mentally healthy, and more outgoing, intelligent, sensitive, confident, and
successful
○ People think they are less physically attractive than they really are.
○ Positive correlation between how physically attractive the main character was and
how virtuous and successful the character was in the film
- Common Denominators of Attractive Faces
○ Composite and symmetrical faces are rated more attractive, perhaps as a
reflection of good health or because they seem familiar
○ Averageness effect: The tendency to perceive a composite image of multiple
faces that have been photographically averaged as more attractive than any
individual face included in that composite.
- Gender Differences in What Is Attractive
○ Men universally prefer a waist-to-hip ratio that suggests fertility
○ At times of peak fertility, women seem to be more attracted to more masculine
faces
○ Men report an ideal preference for attractiveness and women an ideal preference
for social and financial status
○ In actual relationships, men and women equally influences by physical
attractiveness and, to a lesser extent, partner status
○ Women's stated preference for high-status men also be changing as women
achieve greater equality
○ Both men and women rank warmth and loyalty above all other factors
- Cultural and Situational Influences on Attractiveness
○ Standards of beauty vary across cultures and over time
○ Scarcity and status influence trends
○ Mass media have been influential in creating impossible standards of beauty that

Exam Notes Page 2

 ○ Mass media have been influential in creating impossible standards of beauty that
may be hurtful to self-image, especially for women
- Is Appearance Destiny?
○ Attractiveness can change across time and place
○ People can control their perceived attractiveness by being positive in expression
and behaviour

Gender Differences in Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors

- An Evolutionary Perspective
○ Men’s attitudes reflect the reproductive advantages of mating with multiple
women, while women’s attitudes reflect the need to find one mate to help support
child rearing
○ Parental investment: The time and effort that parents must invest in each child
they produce
○ Mating strategies: Approaches to mating that help people reproduce successfully.
People prefer different mating strategies depending on whether they are thinking
about a short-term pairing or a long-term commitment

- Cultural Influences
○ Cultural norms also affect attitudes, as evidenced by the change in acceptance of
premarital sex across generations as well as among cultures
- Your Cheating Heart: Reactions to Infidelity
○ There is some evidence that men and women view infidelity from different
perspectives
○ Mate guarding: The process of preventing others from mating with one’s partner
in order to avoid the costs of rearing offspring that do not help to propagate one’s
genes.
○ Researchers debate the elative role of evolution and culture in creating these
differences.

Exam Notes Page 3