Lecture 11: Attraction

Contact Hypothesis

The idea that contact between different groups can reduce prejudice when certain conditions are met, including equal status, personal interaction, cooperation, and social support for intergroup contact.

Jigsaw Classroom

A cooperative learning strategy where students in mixed groups each learn a different part of the material and then teach it to their group, encouraging cooperation and positive intergroup contact.

Physical Attractiveness

How physically appealing someone is perceived to be; perceptions of attractiveness are influenced by both widely shared preferences and subjective cultural or contextual factors.

Objective Features of Physical Attractiveness

Features that tend to be rated as attractive across cultures, including average faces, symmetrical faces, and baby-face features.

Subjective Physical Attractiveness

The idea that standards of beauty can vary depending on culture, time period, personal preferences, and contextual cues.

What Is Beautiful Is Good Stereotype

The belief that physically attractive people also possess other desirable qualities, such as being happier, more intelligent, socially skilled, and successful.

Halo Effect

The tendency for a positive impression of someone in one area, such as physical attractiveness, to influence judgments of their other traits.

Attributional Ambiguity of Attractiveness

Uncertainty about whether positive treatment or feedback is based on one's actual qualities or simply one's physical attractiveness.

Similarity-Attraction Effect

The tendency to like and be attracted to people who are similar to ourselves.

Matching Hypothesis

The idea that people tend to be attracted to others who are similar to themselves in physical attractiveness.

Complementarity

The idea that opposites attract; the lecture notes that there is little evidence supporting complementarity compared with similarity.

Reciprocity of Liking

The tendency to like people more when we believe that they like us.

Proximity Effect

The tendency for physical or functional closeness to increase the likelihood that people will interact and form relationships.

Functional Distance

How often people's locations or daily routines cause their paths to cross, influencing how likely they are to interact and form relationships.

Propinquity Effect

The more frequently we see and interact with someone, the more likely we are to become friends with them.

Mere Exposure Effect

The tendency to develop greater liking for something or someone simply because we are repeatedly exposed to it.

Need for Affiliation

The human desire to form and maintain social relationships and receive social support.

Equity

A relationship state in which one person's benefits and costs are proportional to the benefits and costs experienced by their partner.

Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love

The theory that love consists of three main components: intimacy, passion, and commitment; different combinations create different types of love.

Commitment

The desire to remain together and be faithful to a partner.

Passion

The physical and emotional arousal experienced toward another person.

Intimacy

Feelings of closeness, sharing, support, and communication with another person.

Liking

Intimacy without passion or commitment.

Infatuation

Passion without intimacy or commitment.

Empty Love

Commitment without intimacy or passion.

Romantic Love

The combination of intimacy and passion; characterized by strong arousal and preoccupation but without commitment.

Fatuous Love

The combination of passion and commitment without developed intimacy.

Companionate Love

The combination of intimacy and commitment, often involving deep commitment after passion has faded.

Consummate Love

The combination of intimacy, passion, and commitment; considered complete love and difficult to attain.

Secure Attachment

A relationship style in which a person finds it relatively easy to become close to others and is comfortable depending on and supporting a partner.

Avoidant Attachment

A relationship style in which a person is uncomfortable with closeness and has difficulty trusting or depending on others.

Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment

A relationship style in which a person strongly desires closeness but worries that their partner does not love them or will not remain with them.

Attachment Styles

Patterns of relating to romantic partners that influence closeness, trust, support, and relationship satisfaction; attachment styles can change over time and across relationships.

Dopamine and Love

Dopamine is associated with early romantic love and can contribute to increased energy, focused attention, and reduced need for food and sleep.

Oxytocin and Love

Oxytocin is stimulated by physical and sexual touch and may contribute to bonding and long-term relationships.

Culture and Love

Culture can influence what people value in partners, how love is defined, and whether romantic love is considered necessary for marriage.

Investment Model of Romantic Satisfaction

A model proposing that relationship commitment and stability depend on satisfaction, investment in the relationship, and the quality of available alternatives.

Relationship Satisfaction

In the Investment Model, satisfaction is influenced by the rewards and costs of the relationship and how the relationship compares with one's expectations.

Investment in a Relationship

The time, effort, emotions, resources, and other things a person has put into a relationship that would be difficult to lose.

Quality of Alternatives

How appealing other possible relationships or being single seem compared with one's current relationship.