Attraction and Intimacy: Liking and Loving Others

1. Attraction and Intimacy: Liking and Loving Others (Chapter Eleven, in Myers)

2. Who�s Out There: Pool of Availables Limiting the Pool Institutional Structures Personal Characteristics & Preferences

3. Who�s Out There: Pool of Availables Limiting the Pool (cont.) Routine Activities Proximity Interaction Familiarity The Mere exposure effect (Zajonc) Works for: art, music, taste, humans, etc.

4. Attraction The Norm of Homogamy Physical attractiveness Attractiveness and dating The matching phenomenon Freshman dance Results: discrepancy between self-report and overt behavior Who is Attractive Explaining the �Freshman dance� study results: 1. The physical-attractiveness stereotype

5. Attraction Who is attractive? Explaining the �Freshman dance� study results (cont.): 2. Preferential Treatment 3. The physical-attractiveness stereotype * What is beautiful is good

6. Attraction (cont.) Who is attractive? Explaining the �Freshman dance� study results (cont.): Waist-Hip Ratio: In women, the persevering 0.70 preference? (Singh)

7. Attraction (cont.) Who is attractive? Explaining the �Freshman dance� study results (cont.): Waist-hip ratio In premenopausal women, .68-.80 is normal) In men: Ideal is .85-.95 (along with higher financial position) Symmetry: Facial and Body Beauty Check (Thornhill), Baby-facedness

8. Attraction (cont.) Who is attractive? Explaining the �Freshman dance� study results (cont.): The Science of Attraction (Victor Johnson, U. of N.M.) Gender Characteristics: Maleness-Femaleness Preference for �Average� (Langlois & Roggman)

9. Attraction (cont.) Facial Attractiveness: Preference for �Average� Faces Contested (Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa, 1994) Face stimuli manufactured by prototyping can be used to investigate questions related to facial attractiveness. For example, the experiment on this page tests and refutes the hypothesis that the average female face of a population is perceived as being the most attractive, a theory put forward by Langlois & Roggman (1990). The experiment is split up into two parts: the first identifying whether highly attractive faces differ in shape from a computed average, and the second making sure that any shape differences are causally related to the perceived attractiveness of the face.

10. Attraction (cont.) Facial Attractiveness: Preference for �Average� Faces Contested (Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa, 1994), cont. Part 1: Is there a difference between the average and highly attractive face shapes? Sixty female faces were rated for attractiveness by male and female raters. An `Average' prototype was made by blending 60 faces into the average shape for the population. A prototype was formed with a `High' shape by blending all 60 faces into the average shape of the 15 most attractive faces. The High shape differs from the Average shape (see diagram below).  Fig. 1 The High shape (from the 25% of female faces judged most attractive) is illustrated in red. The Average shape of the population of female faces is also illustrated in blue. (The above image is linked to a larger version.)

11. Attraction (cont.) Facial Attractiveness: Preference for �Average� Faces Contested (Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa, 1994), cont. Part 2: Is the difference between the average and highly attractive face shapes related to attractiveness? Regarding the three images on the next slide, 90% of male and female Caucasian subjects preferred the prototype in the High shape (image B) to the prototype in the Average shape (image A) indicating that the shape differences were causally related to perceived attractiveness. Moreover, caricaturing the difference between High and Average shapes produced an image (C) which 70% of subjects preferred to image B. Thus, the most attractive face shape is not average. These findings generalized across cultures and gender of face.

12. Preference for �Average� Faces Contested (cont.) (A) (B) (C) (A) Average shape, a prototype made from 60 female faces aged 20-30 without makeup. (B) High shape, the prototype reformed into the average shape of a subset of faces rated highly for attractiveness. (C) Enhanced shape difference, prototype reformed by enhancing the shape differences between images (A) and (B) by 50%.

13. Attraction Physical-attractiveness Stereotype (cont.) Not everyone succumbs to attraction: Low self-monitors Those with Progressive values Having prior info. can help overcome it

14. Friendships: Pre-Contact Beyond Attraction, what Determines Contact? Two Standards (Thibaut & Kelley) Comparison Level (CL) Comparison Level for Alternatives (CLalt)

15. Friendships: Making Contact First Contact Proximity � getting close Nonverbal Communication Body Language � gender, fertility markers Eye Contact Verbal Communication Identification Display �Approach� Access Display �Reciprocal approach� or Denial �Withdrawal�

16. Friendships: Growth Similarity versus complementarity Do birds of a feather flock together? Do opposites attract? Liking those who like us: Attitudinal Similarity, most Important Attribution: better chance of understanding partner�s behavior Self-esteem and attraction: being approved of Gaining another�s esteem

17. Friendships : Growth Self disclosures Should be reciprocal Can happen quickly, but � Too quick ? negative evaluations Sharing Interdependence: �Dyadic Withdrawal� Trust Especially reliability

18. Love Liking vs Love (Rubin & Rubin) Passionate love Schachter�s 2 component theory (Aron & Dutton) Types of love (Sternberg�s Triangle) A theory of passionate love Variations in love Romantic Love The Ideal: 1. Love at first site, 2. One�s �own intended� exists, 3. Love conquers all, 4. One�s �Beloved� is perfect (aka, �Love is blind�), 5. Follow your heart

23. Arranged Marriage

24. Maintaining close relationships Attachment Responsibility for welfare Equity Theory

25. Ending relationships Who divorces? Differential Commitment Other Opportunities -- CLalt The detachment process Timing Gender differences Filter process