CHAPTER 7 – SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Source: Social Psychology (10th Edition) by Saul Kassin (Author), Steven Fein
(Author), Hazel Rose Markus
Chapter 7
Interpersonal Attraction, Close Relationships, and Love
Internal Sources of Attraction: The role of Needs and Emotions
The Importance of Affiliation in Human Existence and Interpersonal Attraction
• Individual differences in the need to affiliate:
✓ Need for affiliation: The primary motive to seek and maintain interpersonal
relationships.
• Are there other people who do not need other people?
• Situational influences on the need to affiliate:
External Sources of Attraction: The Effects of Proximity and Physical Beauty
• Proximity: In attraction research, the physical closeness between two
individuals concerning where they live, where they sit in a classroom,
where they work, and so on. The smaller the physical distance, the greater
the problem that the two people will come into repeated contact and
experience repeated exposure to one another, positive affect, and the
development of mutual attraction.
• Physical attractiveness: The combination of characteristics evaluated as
beautiful or handsome at the positive and unattractive at the negative
extreme.
The Power of Proximity: Unplanned Contacts
• Why does proximity matter? Repeated exposure is the key:
• Repeated exposure effect: Zajonc's finding that frequent contact with any
mildly negative, neutral, or positive stimulus results in an increasingly positive
evaluation of that stimulus.
Observable Characteristics of Others: The Effects of Physical Attractiveness
• Beauty may be only skin deep, but we pay much attention to skin:
, • The "what is beautiful is good" effect:
• What exactly is "attractiveness"?
• Red is indeed sexy- and attractive:
• Other Aspects of Appearance and behaviour that influence attraction:
Factors Based on Social Interaction: Similarity and Mutual Liking:
Similarity: Birds of a Feather Actually do Flock Together:
Similarity-dissimilarity: A consistent predictor of attraction:
• Similarity-dissimilarity effect: The consistent finding is that people respond
positively to indications that another person is similar to themselves and
negatively to indications that another person is dissimilar.
• Attitude similarity: The extent to which two individuals share the same
attitude.
• The proportion of similarity: The number of specific indicators that two
people are similarly divided by the number of specific indicators that two
people are similar plus the number of indicators that they are dissimilar.
• Repulsion hypothesis: Rosenbaum's provocative proposal that attraction is
not increased by similar attitudes but is simply decreased by dissimilar
attitudes.
- This hypothesis is incorrect, but it is true that different attitudes tend to
have more substantial adverse effects than similar attitudes' positive
effects.
• Do people seek similarity in physical attractiveness? The matching hypothesis
revisited:
• Matching hypothesis: The idea that although we would prefer to obtain
desirable romantic partners, we generally focus on obtaining ones whose
physical is about the same as our own.
• Explaining the effect of similarity-dissimilarity on attraction:
Source: Social Psychology (10th Edition) by Saul Kassin (Author), Steven Fein
(Author), Hazel Rose Markus
Chapter 7
Interpersonal Attraction, Close Relationships, and Love
Internal Sources of Attraction: The role of Needs and Emotions
The Importance of Affiliation in Human Existence and Interpersonal Attraction
• Individual differences in the need to affiliate:
✓ Need for affiliation: The primary motive to seek and maintain interpersonal
relationships.
• Are there other people who do not need other people?
• Situational influences on the need to affiliate:
External Sources of Attraction: The Effects of Proximity and Physical Beauty
• Proximity: In attraction research, the physical closeness between two
individuals concerning where they live, where they sit in a classroom,
where they work, and so on. The smaller the physical distance, the greater
the problem that the two people will come into repeated contact and
experience repeated exposure to one another, positive affect, and the
development of mutual attraction.
• Physical attractiveness: The combination of characteristics evaluated as
beautiful or handsome at the positive and unattractive at the negative
extreme.
The Power of Proximity: Unplanned Contacts
• Why does proximity matter? Repeated exposure is the key:
• Repeated exposure effect: Zajonc's finding that frequent contact with any
mildly negative, neutral, or positive stimulus results in an increasingly positive
evaluation of that stimulus.
Observable Characteristics of Others: The Effects of Physical Attractiveness
• Beauty may be only skin deep, but we pay much attention to skin:
, • The "what is beautiful is good" effect:
• What exactly is "attractiveness"?
• Red is indeed sexy- and attractive:
• Other Aspects of Appearance and behaviour that influence attraction:
Factors Based on Social Interaction: Similarity and Mutual Liking:
Similarity: Birds of a Feather Actually do Flock Together:
Similarity-dissimilarity: A consistent predictor of attraction:
• Similarity-dissimilarity effect: The consistent finding is that people respond
positively to indications that another person is similar to themselves and
negatively to indications that another person is dissimilar.
• Attitude similarity: The extent to which two individuals share the same
attitude.
• The proportion of similarity: The number of specific indicators that two
people are similarly divided by the number of specific indicators that two
people are similar plus the number of indicators that they are dissimilar.
• Repulsion hypothesis: Rosenbaum's provocative proposal that attraction is
not increased by similar attitudes but is simply decreased by dissimilar
attitudes.
- This hypothesis is incorrect, but it is true that different attitudes tend to
have more substantial adverse effects than similar attitudes' positive
effects.
• Do people seek similarity in physical attractiveness? The matching hypothesis
revisited:
• Matching hypothesis: The idea that although we would prefer to obtain
desirable romantic partners, we generally focus on obtaining ones whose
physical is about the same as our own.
• Explaining the effect of similarity-dissimilarity on attraction:
