Factors Affecting Attraction
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- Created by: Betsy_2018
- Created on: 11-07-17 17:30
Physical Attraction Intro
- based on evolution
- certain features suggest fertility or ability to care/provide for their partner
- first feature that we notice about people
- basis of online dating apps
- important factor in formation of romatic relationships
- different agreement of what is attractive across cultures
- assumption that we seek to find a relationship with the most attractive person possible
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The Importance of Physical Attraction
Symmetrical Faces
- Shackelford and Larsen
- suggests genetic fitness (lopsided faces supposedly reflect bad foetal development)
- hard to fake symmetrical beauty with plastic surgery
- suggests that the children they will produce will be genetically beautiful
Neotony
- people with baby faces
- triggers an innate tendency to want to care for that person
- good for females who want their partners to care for them and their babies
- large eyes, delicate chin, button nose
Initial Attraction
- McNulty
- in early relationships, and commited marriages, physical attraction is important
- brings partners together
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PA: The Halo Effect
- preconceived ideas about personality traits that attractive people have, usually positive
- physical attractiveness stereotype
- Dion found that physically attractive people were often thought of as kind, strong, successful and sociable
- self-fulfilling prophecy, as this then makes them more attractive to us
- tends to have a disproportionate influence over our perception of their personality and other unrelated attributes
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The Halo Effect Evaluation
For
- Palmer and Peterson - participants thought that the attractive confederates were more politically competent than the unattractive ones, despite it being obvious that they had no expertise
- chart singers are rarely unattractive - we instantly think that because an artist is attractive, they make good music and are more deserving of success
Against
- researchers have found that both men and women actually prefer someone who is supportive, warm and trustworthy, over looks (do not generalise these traits to looks)
- some people are less sensitive to physical attractiveness when making judgements about likeability
- some people instantly hates attractive people because of jealousy or past experience (individual differences)
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PA: The Matching Hypothesis
- proposed by Walster
- we make a realistic valuation of ourselves on how physically attractive we are in our social context
- we are attracted to very physically attractive people for social, cultural, biological and personal reasons, but we know that realistically we are not in their 'league'
- attracted to people of the perceived same level of attractiveness as us
- we fear rejection from those at a higher level of attractiveness than us
- want the best looking person within our range, but must compromise so that they are not too far above us:
- once in the relationship, we suffer the fear of abandonment that our partner will leave us for someone more attractive
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The Matching Hypothesis Evaluation
For
- Feingold found a correlation between the similarities of attractiveness between real life partners
- Walster + Walster - found that when partners were 'matched' by a computer, those more physically similar rated their partner higher than those mismatched, looks-wise
Against
- arranged marriages are based on wealth, family and power. They are very often completely successful and did not require any physical attraction to start them of keep them commited
- Taylor claims that there is no evidence for the hypothesis, as daters in real life very often are not similar and people often strive for much better looking partners
- many people have compensatory assets, such as humour, that people attempt to match to, or are simply attracted to
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Self-Disclosure Intro
- learning personal information about your partner to strengthen and maintain a smooth relationship
- Social Penetration Theory by Altman + Taylor
- from biographical data to self-concept
Reciprocity of Self-Disclosure
- Reis and Shaver
- balance of revealing personal information for relationship intimacy
- partners respond with empathy, understanding and rewarding with their own feelings
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Social Penetration Theory
- Altman and Taylor
- reciprocal exchange of intimate personal information
- helps maintain trust
- penetrate deeper into each other's lives
- working your way from biographical data to self-concept
- Low Risk information at the start of the relationship
- superficial information you would give to anyone
- narrow breadth
- little depth
- fear of scaring off a partner with too much deep detail
- High Risk information for long relationships
- great depth
- larger breadth (more layers)
- trust our partners enough to be able to cope with the deeper information
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Reciprocity of Self-Disclosure
- Reis and Shaver
- balance of revealing personal information for relationship intimacy
- partners respond with empathy, understanding and rewarding with their own feelings
- need to work your way down deeper (telling your partner lots of information straight away can scare them off)
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Evaluation
For
- Sprecher and Hendrick - those who believed partner disclosed information were the most satisfied and commited in their relationship
- Hass and Stafford - 57% of gay partners said self-disclosure was best for deeper, more commited relationships
- can be used to counsel couples and bring them together
Against
- Tang said that collectivist cultures do not disclose certain aspects of their lives, such as sexual preferences, as much as individualist cultures (culturally biased)
- Duck - failing relationships disclose the problems of the realtionship, but usually make it worse or end up breaking up
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Filter Theory
- Kerckhoff + Davis
- based on the idea that we only meet a small fraction of people in our lifetimes
- we must filter through the field of availables to find our field of desirables using several filters that appear through 3 levels:
- proximity
- physical attractiveness
- similarity
- meets our needs
- competence
- the filters start at social variables and get down to internal values
Study
- compared attitudes and personalities of short-term partners and long-term student partners
- found that similarity was most important before 18 months
- complimentarity was more important after 18 months
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Filter Levels
Social Demography (1st Level)
- proximity and access to partners, usually of the same social and ethnic group (homogamy)
- within our physical attraction and education range
Similarity in Attitudes (2nd Level)
- homogramy-based ideals
- promote self-disclosure
Complimentarity (3rd Level)
- needs met
- what one partner lacks, the other compensates for
- attracted to intelligence and competence
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Evaluation
For
- Winch - similarities in attitudes for early relationships and complementarity in later ones were typical
Against
- Levinger - no evidence for similarity or complimentarity influencing permenance
- Anderson - (longitudinal study) couples become more similar, not more complimentary
- attitudes change over time, as do personalities, which the Filter Theory does not account for
- online dating reduces importance of first filter
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