Interpersonal Attraction

What Predicts Attraction?

Close relationships are fundamental for happiness; their absence leads to loneliness and feelings of worthlessness.
People desire self-expansion, aiming to merge or overlap with others.

Need for Close Interpersonal Bonds

Forming close bonds is a basic human need.
Relationships provide psychological and physiological benefits.

The Person Next Door: The Propinquity Effect

Propinquity Effect: Increased interaction leads to increased friendship.
Mere Exposure Effect: Greater exposure to a stimulus increases liking.
Familiarity and proximity predict friendship.

Similarity

Similarity sustains relationships initiated by propinquity.
Shared interests, appearance, and genetics contribute to attraction.
Matching hypothesis: We form bonds with those of similar attractiveness.

Attraction and the Matching Hypothesis

People seek desirable partners, leading to pairings based on attractiveness.
Other factors besides appearance contribute to desirability.

Is everything about Similarity?

Perceived similarity matters as much as actual similarity.
Low commitment situations may involve attraction to opposites; high commitment favors similarity.

Reciprocity

Mutual liking increases self-disclosure.
People prefer those who show they like us.

Playing Hard to Get

May backfire due to the general preference for those who like us.

Physical Attractiveness

Plays a significant role in liking, with minimal gender differences in behavior.

Physical Appearance

Attractiveness leads attention.

Female Faces – What is Attractive?

Features include large eyes, small nose/chin, prominent cheekbones, high eyebrows, large pupils, and a big smile.

Male Faces – What is Attractive?

Features include large eyes, prominent cheekbones, large chin, and a big smile.

Cultural Standards of Beauty

Facial attractiveness perceptions are consistent across cultures.
Preference for symmetry and "averaged" composite faces.

Average Beauty

Attractiveness ratings are consistent across people and cultures.

The Power of Familiarity

Familiarity is crucial for interpersonal attraction.
People prefer faces resembling their own.
Familiarity gained through propinquity, similarity, and reciprocal liking.

Assumptions About Attractive People

Beauty is associated with better health outcomes, earnings, and evaluations.
Halo Effect: Positive traits are assumed based on attractiveness, affecting hiring, salaries, and class ratings.

What is Beautiful Is Good?

Stereotype that links beauty with positive qualities.

Culture and the “What is Beautiful is Good” Stereotype

Shared traits across cultures: sociable, extroverted, happy, well-adjusted.
Culture-specific traits exist.

Attractive People and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Attractive individuals develop good social skills due to increased social attention.
Self-fulfilling prophecy demonstrated by eliciting warmer responses when perceived as attractive.

Evolution and Mate Selection

Evolutionary psychology explains social behavior via genetic factors and natural selection.
Men seek appearance; women seek resources to maximize reproductive success.

Evolution and Mate Selection

Women value ambition, industriousness, and earning capacity.
Men value attractiveness.
Both value honesty, trustworthiness, and pleasant personality.

Reproductive Fitness

Attractiveness linked to reproductive concerns; women near ovulation prefer masculine features.

Evolution and Mate Selection

Women near ovulation prefer men with signs of reproductive fitness.

Alternate Perspectives on Sex Differences

Gender differences may stem from status differences and dating paradigms.

Speed Dating and the Science of Relationships

Highlights the potential to improve relationship quality through scientific understanding.

Making Connections in the Age of Technology

Technology can decrease connectedness and empathy.
Internet dating may lead to decreased liking after meeting in person.

Attraction 2.0: Mate Preference in an Online Era

Propinquity: reduced degrees of separation online.
Similarity: seeking similar popularity.
Familiarity: liking decreases post-meeting.
Inaccuracy of online Profiles.

The Promise and Pitfalls of Online Dating

Benefits: large profiles, communication, compatibility matching.
Success rates are not significantly higher than traditional methods.

The Promise and Pitfalls of Online Dating

Pitfalls: hard to predict compatibility factors like communication, may have inaccurate profiles.

“Hook-Up Culture” and Today’s Youth

More myth than reality; rates of casual encounters mostly unchanged.

What is Love?

Companionate Love: Intimacy and affection without passion.
Passionate Love: Intense longing with physiological arousal.

Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love

Components: Intimacy, passion, and commitment.
Types: liking, romantic love, consummate love, companionate love, infatuation, fatuous love, empty love.

Love and Close Relationships

Companionate Love: Stable, calm, and dependable; predicts longevity and satisfaction.
Passionate Love: Intense and exciting; declines over time.

Culture and Love

Love is universal, but cultural differences influence expression and experience.
Romantic love is more valued in individualistic cultures.

Culture and Love

Americans value passionate love more than the Chinese, who value companionate love more.
Taita of Kenya value both equally.

Culture and Love

Japanese amae, Chinese gan qing, and Korean jung represent culturally specific love concepts.

Culture and Love

Romantic love is universal, but cultural rules shape its experience, expression, and memory.

Attachment Styles in Intimate Relationships

Attachment styles are based on early relationships with caregivers.
Styles: Secure, Anxious/Ambivalent, and Avoidant.

The Permanence of Attachment Styles

Attachment styles learned in infancy persist throughout life.

Three Styles of Attachment

Secure: Trust and worthiness.
Anxious/Ambivalent: Concern over reciprocity and anxiety.
Avoidant: Suppression of needs and difficulty with intimacy.

Measuring Adult Attachment Styles

Secure: Comfortable with closeness and interdependence (56%).
Avoidant: Uncomfortable with intimacy and trust (25%).
Anxious: Worried about partner's love and fear of abandonment (19%).

Early Attachment Styles Stay With Us

Attachment style learned in infancy becomes a relationship schema.
Secure: Mature and lasting relationships.
Avoidant: Difficulty with trust and intimacy.
Anxious/Ambivalent: Desire for closeness but worry about reciprocation.

Attachment Style is Not Destiny

Unhappy early relationships don't determine future relationships.
Experiences can lead to healthier relationship patterns.
Individuals may develop multiple attachment styles.

This is Your Brain … in Love

Viewing a beloved person activates reward and motivation circuits in the brain (VTA and caudate nucleus).

Assessing Relationships: Satisfaction and Breaking Up

Theories of relationship satisfaction:

Social Exchange Theory

People's feelings depend on rewards, costs, deserved relationship, and chances for a better relationship.
Rewards: Positive aspects.
Costs: Negative aspects.
Outcomes: comparison of rewards vs costs.
Comparison level: Expectations of level of rewards.

Social Exchange Theory

Relationship satisfaction depends on comparison level & alternative relationships.

Investment Model of Commitment

Commitment depends on satisfaction, investment, and potential loss from leaving.

Investment Model of Commitment

Satisfaction + Investment - Alternatives = Commitment = Stability.

Will People Stay in Love?

Predictors include satisfaction, alternatives, and investment.

Theories of Relationship Satisfaction

Equity Theory: Equitable relationships (equal rewards and costs) are happiest.
Inequitable relationships lead to distress.

Equity in Long-Term Relationships

In long-term relationships, people are less concerned with immediate compensation.

Exchange and Communal Relationships

Exchange Relationships: governed by need for equity; trade "in kind".
Communal Relationships: concern is responsiveness; equity is less closely tracked.

Communal Relationships and Equity

In communal relationships, distress arises when inequity is perceived; equity takes a more relaxed form.

The Process and Experience of Breaking Up

American divorce rate is nearly 50%.
Relationship dissolution is a process with many steps.

Ending Intimate Relationships: The Process of Breaking Up

Four stages: Intrapersonal, Dyadic, Social, and Intrapersonal.

The Process of Breaking Up

Fatal Attraction: Qualities initially attractive become disliked upon breakup.

Four Behaviors in Troubled Relationships

Destructive: active or passive harm.
Constructive: active improvement or passive loyalty.

Conflict and Dissolution Prediction

Attributions and communication predict dissolution.

Relationship Dissolution

Breakups cause negative psychological outcomes.
Breakers experience least distress, breakees the most, and mutuals fall in the middle.

Relationship Dissolution & Gender

Men less likely to want friendships post-breakup than women.
Friendships more likely with higher investment and satisfaction.