Interpersonal Attraction: From

First Impressions to Close

Relationships

“Try to reason about love, and

you will lose your reason.”
– French proverb
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 What Causes Attraction?
The absence of meaningful relationships with
other people makes people feel lonely,
worthless, hopeless, helpless, powerless, and
alienated.
In this lecture, we will discuss the antecedents
of attraction, from the initial liking of two
people meeting for the first time to the love
that develops in close relationships.

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 Connections: This Is Your Brain…
In Love
fMRI research found:
• When looking at their beloved compared to when
looking at someone else, participants who self-reported
higher levels of romantic love showed greater activation
in the brain’s ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the
caudate nucleus, which communicate with each other
as part of a circuit.
• A great deal is already known about what causes these
areas of the brain to fire and what kind of processing
they do—and now, this knowledge can be applied to
the experience of passionate love.
 Swagger
• Can we be made to act more attractive?
– Yes! (Snyder et al., 1977)
• Gave packet to men at college to prep for phone
conversation with woman
• Men who thought they were talking to an attractive
woman responded much warmer to her, which
ultimately influenced the woman’s behavior to bring
out her best traits
• Andersen & Bem (1981) reversed gender with similar
findings

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 The Person Next Door:
The Propinquity Effect

One of the simplest determinants of

interpersonal attraction is proximity
(sometimes called propinquity).

Propinquity Effect
The finding that the more we see and
interact with people, the more likely they
are to become our friends.
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Festinger, Schachter, and Back (1950) tracked friendship
formation among the couples in various apartment
buildings.
Residents had been assigned to their apartments at random.
Most were strangers when they moved in.
The researchers asked the residents to name their three closest
friends in the entire housing project.
Just as the propinquity effect would predict, 65% of the friends
mentioned lived in the same building, even though the other
buildings were not far away.
Adapted from Festinger,
Schachter & Back, 1950.
Even more striking was the pattern of friendships within
a building:
• 41% of the next-door neighbors indicated they were
close friends.
• 22% of those who lived two doors apart said so.
• Only 10% of those who lived on opposite ends of the
hall indicated they were close friends.

Adapted from Festinger,

Schachter & Back, 1950.
 Adapted from Festinger,
Schachter & Back, 1950.

Functional distance
Refers to certain aspects of architectural design
that make it more likely that some people will
come into contact with each other more often
than with others.
• I am still good friends with someone that I
didn’t know before college but lived within 3
doors from me my freshman year.

A) Yes B) No
 The Person Next Door:
The Propinquity Effect

The propinquity effect occurs due to

mere exposure.

Mere Exposure Effect

The finding that the more exposure we
have to a stimulus, the more apt we
are to like it.
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 Computers: Long-Distance Propinquity

Researchers found that strangers who met on the

Internet were more attracted to each other than
those who met face-to-face.
Whether people on the Internet were attracted to
each other was largely determined by the level and
quality of their conversation, while face-to-face
meetings depended on other variables as well, such
as physical attractiveness.

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 Computers: Long-Distance Propinquity

Chan and Cheng (2004) found that the quality

of offline friendships was higher than that of
online for relationships that had existed for
up to a year.
However, when friendships had existed for
longer than a year, the online and offline
relationships were very similar.

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 Similarity

Researchers describe two types of situations in

which relationships begin:
• Closed-field situations, in which people are
forced to interact with each other.
• Open-field situations, in which people are
free to interact or not as they choose.

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 Similarity

Propinquity increases familiarity, which leads to liking,

but something more is needed to fuel a growing
friendship or a romantic relationship. (Otherwise,
every pair of roommates would be best friends!)

That “fuel” is similarity—a match between our

interests, attitudes, values, background, or
personality and those of another person.

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 Opinions and Personality

The more similar a strangers interests are to

yours, the more you will like that person.
Newcomb (1961): College men became friends
with who were similar in:
demographics
attitudes
values

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 Interpersonal Style

We are attracted to people with interpersonal style &

communication skills similar to our own.

Relationships with those who do not share your

communication style can be frustrating and less likely to
flourish.

Style=potential predictor of relationship success in:

:
getting married
marital disputes
divorces

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 Interests and Experiences

The situations that you choose to be in are, by

definition, populated by people who have chosen
them for similar reasons.

Students in the same academic track share many of

the same experiences.

New similarities are created and discovered between

them, fueling the friendships.

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 Interests and Experiences
Why is similarity so important in attraction?
1. We tend to think that people who are
similar to us will also like us, so we are likely
to initiate a relationship.
2. People who are similar validate our own
characteristics and beliefs.
3. We make negative inferences about
someone who disagrees with us on
important issues.
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 Interests and Experiences

If participants want a committed relationship,

they choose a similar partner.
However, if they feel a low level of commitment
to the relationship, they favor dissimilar
partners.

Relationships based on differences, rather than

similarities, can be very difficult to maintain.

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 Reciprocal Liking

• Just knowing that someone likes us fuels our

attraction to the person.
• Reciprocal liking sometimes happens because
of a self-fulfilling prophecy:
• When we expect people to like us, we elicit
more favorable behavior from them and
show more to them.

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 Reciprocal Liking

People with a negative self-concept respond quite

differently:
•Such people indicate that they’d prefer to meet and
talk to a person they know has criticized them earlier
than meet and talk to a person they know has praised
them earlier.
•Thus if people think of themselves as unlikable,
another person’s friendly behavior toward them will
seem unwarranted, and they may not respond, setting
in motion another self-fulfilling prophecy.

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 Physical Attractiveness and Liking

• Physical attractiveness also plays an

important role in liking.
• People from different cultures perceive facial
attractiveness quite similarly.
• The “what is beautiful is good” stereotype
indicates that people assume that physical
attractiveness is associated with other
desirable traits.

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 Physical Attractiveness and Liking
• Genders differences in the importance of
attractiveness are greater when men’s and women’s
attitudes are measured than when their actual
behavior is measured.
• It may be that men are more likely than women to
say that physical attractiveness is important to them
in a potential friend, date, or mate, but when it
comes to actual behavior, the sexes are more similar
in their response to the physical attractiveness of
others.

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 What Is Attractive?

High attractiveness ratings are associated with

female faces with:
• Large eyes • Narrow cheeks
• Small nose • High eyebrows
• Small chin • Large pupils
• Prominent cheekbones • Big smile

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 What Is Attractive?

In women’s ratings of male beauty, they gave

the highest attractiveness ratings to men’s
faces with:
• Large eyes
• Prominent cheekbones
• Large chin
• Big smile

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 Assumptions about Attractive People

Highly attractive people do develop good social

interaction skills and report having more
satisfying interactions with others.
This involves a self-fulfilling prophecy:
The beautiful, from a young age, receive a great
deal of social attention that in turn helps
them develop good social skills.

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 Attachment
• The bond between mother and child
– Freud – established in Oral stage
• Results in being selfish or untrusting
– Erikson – Trust vs. Mistrust
• Affects later relationships with others
– Harlow – comfort vs. survival
– Bowlby – attachment between mother and child is
emotional
• Results in sensitive parental responding
– Ainsworth – Attachment results in ability to cope and
explore environment

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 Ainsworth and Bowlby’s Attachment
Children
• Secure – 60% of children
– Upset when mother leaves; happy when she returns
• Insecure Avoidant – 20% of children
– Don’t care when parent leaves; and avoid parent on return
• Insecure Ambivalent/resistant (anxious) – 20% of
children
– Very hard to comfort; alternate between wanting comfort
and punishing parent for leaving
• Disorganized – some don’t fit any category
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 Infant-Caregiver Attachment Compared
(Hazaan and Shaver)
Attachment Romantic love
• Bond depends on • Feelings are related to
attachment object’s
responsiveness lover’s interest
• Infant happier in • Happier when lover is
attachment object present
presence
• Shares discoveries with • Shares experiences with
attachment object. Coos, lover
talks baby talk • Lovers coo, talk baby talk
• Feeling of oneness with • Feeling of oneness with
attachment object
lover

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 Ainsworth and Bowlby’s Attachment
Adults
• Secure - 60%
– Higher self-esteem
– better health
– better language
• Anxious/ambivalent – 20%
– Negative view of others
– Worry about abandonment
• Avoidant (dismissive and fearful) – 20%
– Distrustful
– Uncomfortable with intimacy

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• What attachment style describes you best
with your romantic relationships?

A) Secure
B) Anxious/ambivalent
C) Anxious/avoidant

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 Theories of Interpersonal Attraction:
Social Exchange and Equity

Social Exchange Theory

The idea that people’s feelings about a relationship depend on
perceptions of rewards and costs, the kind of relationship
they deserve, and their chances for having a better
relationship with someone else.

Equity Theory
The idea that people are happiest with relationships in which
rewards and costs experienced and both parties’
contributions are roughly equal.

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 Social Exchange Theory

Social exchange theory holds that how people feel (positively

or negatively) about their relationships will depend on:
(1) Their perception of the rewards they receive from the
relationship,
(2) Their perception of the costs they incur, and
(3) Their perception of what kind of relationship they deserve
and the probability that they could have a better
relationship with someone else.
In other words, we buy the best relationship we can get, one
that gives us the most value for our emotional dollar. The
basic concepts of social exchange theory are reward, cost,
outcome, and comparison level.

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 Social Exchange Theory

How satisfied you are with your relationship

depends on another variable—your
comparison level.

Comparison Level
People’s expectations about the level of
rewards and punishments they are likely to
receive in a particular relationship.

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 Social Exchange Theory

Finally, your satisfaction with a relationship also

depends on your perception of the likelihood
that you could replace it with a better one.

Comparison Level for Alternatives

People’s expectations about the level of
rewards and punishments they would
receive in an alternative relationship.

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 Equity Theory

Proponents of equity theory describe equitable

relationships as the happiest and most stable.
In comparison, inequitable relationships result in
one person feeling:
• Overbenefited (getting a lot of rewards,
incurring few costs, having to devote little time
or energy to the relationship), or
• Underbenefited (getting few rewards, incurring
a lot of costs, having to devote a lot of time and
energy to the relationship).

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• Would you rather be the
A) Breaker – initiating the break-up
B) Brekee – one broken up with

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 Breaking Up
• Multi-step process (Duck, 1982)
1. Intrapersonal
• Think about dissatisfaction with partner
2. Dyadic
• Discuss breakup with partner
3. Social
• Tell others that it is over
4. Intrapersonal part 2
• Reflection and recovery

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 Breaking Up
• Investment model
– Break up for imbalanced effort
• Rusbult’s 4 troubled relationship behaviors
– Active harm (e.g. abusive, threatening)
– Passivity (e.g. ignoring/stonewalling, lack of effort)
– Attempt improvement (e.g. counseling)
– Passive loyalty (e.g. supportive but seeking no
change)
• Lack of similarity
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 Breaking Up
• Breakers vs. Breakees vs. Mutual (Akert, 1998)
– Role determines experience
– Breakees
• Miserable, lonely, depressed, angry, physical illness (weeks after break-up)
– Breakers
• Least upset and less physically ill
• May have higher levels of guilt
– Mutual responsibility
• 60% experienced illness
• Not as upset as Breakees but more upset than Breakers
• Women overall had more negative reactions
– Also wanted to stay connected to partner
• Men experience great control or lack of control tend to cut losses and move
on
– Do no want contact with X

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 Love and Culture
• Individualistic cultures emphasize passion
• Collectivist cultures tend to downplay passion
as it may disrupt family traditions
– Value practical aspects of relationships
• Gender roles vary by culture
• Americans tend to show the most confusion
and ambivalence in relationships compared to
other cultures

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 Jealousy
• Aversive response (i.e. emotional) to a real
or imagined involvement with a third person
– Painful experience
– Absence may indicate relationship
problems
– Occurs where there are commitments in a
relationship
• Men and women differ in reported attempts
to make their partner jealous

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 Managing Jealousy
• Jealousy can be unreasonable or realistic
– Dealing with irrational suspicions can be
difficult
– Can work on underlying causes of our
insecurity
– If jealousy is well-founded, relationship may
need to be modified or ended
– Jealousy can be the catalyst for change

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