Attraction and Close Relationships

1. Attraction and Close Relationships Social Psychology Chapter 9 November 19, 2004 Class #12

3. The Need to Belong • The need to belong is a basic human motive • We care deeply about what others think of us • Those with a network of close social ties tend to be happier, healthier, and more satisfied with life than those who are more isolated

4. The Thrill of Affiliation • Need for Affiliation: • The desire to establish social contact with others. • We are motivated to establish and maintain an optimum balance of social contact. • Stress arouses our need for affiliation • Fearful misery loves company • Embarrassed misery seeks solitude • Misery loves the company of those in the same miserable situation

5. Shyness: A Pervasive Problem

6. Shyness • Sources • Inborn personality trait • Learned reaction to failed interactions with others • Painful consequences • Negative self-evaluations • Expectations of failure in social encounters • Self-blame for social failures • Self-imposed isolation

7. The Agony of Loneliness • A feeling of deprivation about social relations • Most likely to occur during times of transition or disruption • Loneliest group in American society are those 18 to 30 years old • We employ various strategies to combat loneliness

8. Perspectives on Attraction • We are attracted to others with whom a relationship is directly or indirectly rewarding • All humans exhibit patterns of attraction and mate selection that favor the conception, birth, and survival of their offspring • Evolutionary perspective

9. Familiarity: Being There • Who are we most likely to become attracted to? • Two basic and necessary factors in the attraction process: • Proximity • Exposure

10. The Proximity Effect • The single best predictor of attraction is physical proximity, or nearness • Where we live influences the friends we make • College students tend to date those who live either nearby or in the same type of housing as they do

11. The Mere Exposure Effect • Contrary to folk wisdom, familiarity does not breed contempt • The more often we are exposed to a stimulus, the more we come to like that stimulus • Familiarity can influence our self-evaluations

12. Here we go again… • Physical Attractiveness: • We react more favorably to others who are physically attractive than to those who are not • Bias for beauty is pervasive

13. Is Beauty an Objective Quality? • Some argue that certain faces are inherently more attractive than others • High levels of agreement for facial ratings across ages and cultures • Physical features of the face are reliably associated with judgments of attractiveness • Babies prefer faces considered attractive by adults

14. Is Beauty a Subjective Quality? • People from different cultures enhance their beauty in very different ways • Ideal body shapes vary across cultures, as well as among racial groups within a culture • Standards of beauty change over time • Situational factors can influence judgments of beauty

15. Why Are We Blinded by Beauty? • Inherently rewarding to be in the company of people who are aesthetically appealing • Possible intrinsic and extrinsic rewards • Tendency to associate physical attractiveness with other desirable qualities • What-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype

16. The Physical Attractiveness Stereotype • People within a culture, assume that attractive people have the traits that are valued by that culture • Adults and children are biased toward attractive people • Even infants stare at attractive people longer than unattractive people! • Lessons begin early – how many ugly heroes are there in children’s tales vs. the number of ugly villians?

17. The Benefits and Costs of Beauty • Being good-looking does not guarantee health, happiness, or high self-esteem • Attributional problems with being good-looking: • Is the attention and praise one receives due to one’s talents or just one’s good looks?

18. Other Costs of Beauty • Pressure to maintain one’s appearance • In American society, pressures are particularly strong when it comes to the body • Women are more likely than men to suffer from the “modern mania for slenderness” • Overall, being beautiful is a mixed blessing • Little relationship between appearance in youth and later happiness

19. This appears to be conflicting research… • Simpson, Gangestad, & Lerma (1990) • People involved in serious relationships rate beautiful models as less attractive • Kendrick et al. (1989) • Men viewing ravishing nude models in magazines gave lower ratings to average-looking women including their own wives • Appears contrast effect is in place here

20. How important is intelligence? • Men and women differ in this criterion for sexual partners • But not for long-term partners

21. Kenrick, Sadalla, Groth, & Trost (1990) Kenrick, Groth, Trost & Sadalla (1993) • Students in these series of studies were asked: • What is the minimum percentile of intelligence you would accept in considering someone for: • A DATE • A SEXUAL PARTNER • A ONE NIGHT STAND • A STEADY DATING PARTNER • A MARRIAGE PARTNER

22. Minimum Intelligence Desired Women desire slightly above average for a single date 50th %ile AVERAGE DATE • 

23. And want more with increasing commitment 50th %ile STEADY DATE SEX MARRIAGE • 

24. Men have similar criteria for dates STEADY DATE SEX MARRIAGE • 

25. And for long-term mates STEADY DATE SEX MARRIAGE • 

26. But men’s criteria are considerably lower for sexual partners STEADY DATE SEX MARRIAGE • 

27. The differences are even more pronounced for one-night stands STEADY DATE SEX MARRIAGE • 

28. First Encounters: Liking Others Who Are Similar • We tend to associate with others who are similar to ourselves… • Byrne (1971): • We like people who we perceive as having similar attitudes to our own • Rosenbaum (1986): • Similarity does not spark attraction; rather dissimilarity triggers repulsion, the desire to avoid someone

29. Matching Hypothesis • People tend to become involved romantically with others who are equivalent in their physical attractiveness • Matching is predictive of progress in a relationship

30. Do Opposites Attract? • Is there support for the complementarity hypothesis, which holds that people seek others whose needs “oppose” their own? • Research shows that complementarity does not influence attraction

31. First Encounters: Liking Others Who Like Us • Heider (1958): People prefer relationships that are psychologically balanced • A state of balance exists when the relationship is characterized by reciprocity • Mutual exchange between what one gives and what one receives • Liking is mutual, which is why we tend to like others who indicate that they like us

32. First Encounters: Pursuing Those Who Are Hard to Get • Does the hard-to-get effect exist? • We prefer people who are moderately selective to those who are nonselective or too selective • We are turned off by those who reject us • Psychological reactance can increase or decrease attraction

33. Mate Selection: The Evolutionary Perspective • Men and women by nature must differ in their optimal mating behaviors • Women must be highly selective because they are biologically limited in the number of children they can bear and raise in a lifetime • Men can father an unlimited number of children and ensure their reproductive success by inseminating many women

34. Sex Differences in Mate Preferences: Evolutionary Necessities? Li et al. (2002)

35. The Burger King Study • Townsend & Levy (1990) • Who would you prefer: a well-dressed unattractive person or a good-looking person in a Burger King outfit???

36. Cues to resources – Clothes • Burger King study: • Townsend and Levy (1990) looked at the effects of male status and ornamentation. • First, males were pre-rated into 2 groups: • Handsome versus homely • Each were put into 1 of 3 costumes: • Armani suit with Rolex (high status), white t-shirt (medium status), or Burger King uniform (low status)

37. Design of the study: 2x3 Handsome Homely Armani suit (high) White t-shirt (medium) BK outfit (low)

38. Results? • What do you think happened? • Females? • Males?

39. The Content of Women’s MatePreferences • Social status universal clue to the control of resources • Greater social status bestows children with better opportunities • Women consistently rate social status as being more desirable in a partner than men do • For women, social status rated only slightly less important than good financial prospects

40. Supporting Evidence for the Evolutionary Perspective • Universal tendency in desired age for potential mate • Men tend to seek younger women • Women tend to desire older men • Men and women become jealous for different reasons • Men become most upset by sexual infidelity • Women feel more threatened by emotional infidelity

41. Mate Selection: Sociocultural Perspectives • Women trade youth and beauty for money because they often lack direct access to economic power • Men are fearful of sexual infidelity because it represents a threat to the relationship, not fatherhood issues

42. Are women selective about earning capacity?Minimum Standards (Kenrick et al, 1990)

43. Studies of personal ads… • Wiederman (1993) • A study of 1,111 personal ads found that female advertisers seek financial resources 11 times as often as male advertisers • Buss (1989) • Looked at 10,047 individuals in 37 cultures on 6 continents and 5 islands • Found this was not just restricted to American or Western Societies

44. Gender Differences… • The differences typically found between the sexes are small compared to the similarities. • But when it comes to casual sex… • See next slides…

45. “I have been noticing you around campus. I find you very attractive.” • Clark & Hatfield (1989) • In this study, students were approached by another student of the opposite sex, who uttered the above statement… • This was followed by one of three invitations: • “Would you go out tonight?” or • “Would you come over to my apartment?” or • “Would you go to bed with me?”

46. Men were even more likely to say “yes” to the sexual invitation 100 80 60 Not a single woman said “yes” to the sexual invitation Percent Saying “Yes” About half of both sexes said “yes” to the date 40 20 0 Go Out Go to Apt. Go to Bed

47. Variations in Perceptions and Reactions • Compared to women, men perceive more sexuality in an interaction between a man and a woman • This is true whether they are participants or observers • However, men see interactions involving their sister as platonic

48. Defining Features of Love • Beverly Fehr (1988) asked Canadian students to list as many features of love as they could in 3 minutes. • Students lists commonly included: • caring • happiness • friendship • warmth • trust • commitment • euphoria • Sexual passion • heart rate increases

49. Intimate Relationships • Often involve three basic components: • Feelings of attachment, affection, and love. • The fulfillment of psychological needs. • Interdependence between partners, each of whom has a meaningful influence on the other. • How do first encounters evolve into intimate relationships? • By stages or by leaps and bounds?

50. Murstein’s (1986) Stimulus-Value-Role Theory • Stimulus Stage: Attraction is sparked by external attributes such as physical appearance • Value Stage: Attachment is based on similarity of values and beliefs • Role Stage: Commitment is based on the performance of such roles as husband and wife