The attraction hypothesis

1. The attraction hypothesis Katelyn Cleary

2. Attitude similarity • Newcomb (1961) found that when pairing students on similar beliefs and attitudes, friendships were more likely to form when paired with someone similar (58% when similar and 25% when dissimilar). • Bryne et al (1968) found that similarity when related to topics of importance affected attraction. • Example: If you believe that football players should be unionized and your significant other believes the same, they become more attractive.

3. Similarity in everything • Similarity has also been linked to attraction in demographics (age, social class, etc), physical attractiveness, cultural beliefs and personality. • Rubin (1973) suggested that similarity is important because: • If we like those who are similar, they will probably like us back • Communication is easier with similar people • If we like ourselves, we will like others like us • They will probably enjoy doing the same things

4. Setting the record straight.. • Rosenbaum (1986) states. “attitude similarity does not lead to liking” and that “similarity has no important consequence” • Though Disney taught us anything is possible, it’s pretty safe to say this is FALSE.

5. The problem is, humans think too much • The main premise of Rosenbaum’s study is that he humans don’t think or draw conclusions when provided with information. • Even with Rosenbaum leaving out information or only providing a “positive traits” condition it is the human condition to fill in information that the experimenter left out. • Thus, there really is no baseline control condition or no-attitude control because the participant fills in “holes” with information similar to themselves. • An example of this is when provided with a picture, the participant can see if the subject is the same race, age, education level, etc. and thus assumes attitude similarity.

6. No-brain subjects needed:Apply within! • The previous shows us that a no-attitude control group is impossible with human subjects with brains. • Humans take the information given to them and fill in the blanks. • Example: they are a graduate student, they must be as miserable as I am. • So, before any empirical evidence, Rosenbaum’s argument is already incredibly flawed. • He is basically comparing similarity to similarity so effects would not be expected. Thus, with the political study, it makes perfect sense by there was no effect on liking when the stimilus was a democrat

7. The basic premise is flawed. • A basic study in this paradigm (Bryne & Nelson, 1965) in which much of the first experiment is based on, found that both similar and dissimilar attitudes were not significantly related to attraction. • This finding could not be possible if dissimilar attitudes affect attraction but similar ones do not.

8. ALL OR NOTHING • A major concern in this literature is the fact that social psychologists assume that similarity and dissimilarity are polar opposites. • So they conclude it is either present or absent on variables. • However, the true way to look at these variables is to realize the other information the participant is given such as physical appearance, trait descriptions or political affiliation. • Thus, Rosenbaum is really examining the effect of attitude similarity against already positive information. • If you think about the logic in it, you can see that taken literally, the repulsion hypothesis would suggest that a complete stranger with 2 similar and 2 dissimilar attitudes would be comparable in liking to a stranger with 200 similar and 2 dissimilar attitudes.

9. Predictive Power • The most useful part of the Reinforcement-Affect Model is that each type of stimulus information can be scaled to specific weights. • The predictive power permits the ability to say a variable should or should not have a detectable effect on attraction. • The formula for attitudinal information is: Y=5.44X+6.62. • Where y= attraction and x= proportion of similar attitudes by total attitudes • This formula must be modified for the no attitude condition. • The table of what these proportions are and their subsequent predicted attraction verse the reported means is next..

10. Table of challenge

11. Central point • As you could see in the table, the means found by Rosenbaum are not incredibly different from those predicted by the widely accepted model. • So, the lack of similarity effect is not a surprising indication that “attitude similarity does not lead to liking” but a reliability check of the model.

12. Learning and attraction?? • Rosenbaum then makes quite the jump from similarity and attraction to learning. • He suggests that nonsense syllables contrasted with blank cards have effects on performance in the discrimination-learning task. • Specifically, he stated that similar attitude statements have no more incentive than nonsense syllables. • This argument is the complete opposite of Byrne et al. who said that similar and neutral statements both provide reinforcement because response frequency increases. • However, it would be reasonable to assume that participants assumed that something was a more positive indicator than nothing. Thus, the same pattern may hold true if blank cards were contrasted to literally ANYTHING other than negative stimuli.

13. Conclusion • Does Rosenbaum raise an interesting point about similarity and attraction? • Yes. He challenged the view that others are similar to us and share the same attitudes and beliefs. • Does he effectively test his hypothesis? • NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. • Thus, as always, more experiments are necessary, and not because journal reviewers basically require this statement but because it is really true.

14. Big Picture • We hold an expectancy for attitude similarity and the discovery of dissimilar attitudes play a larger role in friendship formation than similar ones. • Over time, positive stimuli may loose their power because they are less novel than negative stimuli and because of contrast with extremely positive stimuli such as celebrities. • Thus, relationships and attraction may rely on negative factors like dissimilar attitudes to exclude further potential and then move to rely on positive factors such as similar attitudes to select “final candidates”.