PSYC 355 Final Exam Questions and Answers 100%
Correct
What Causes Attraction to Others?
-Basic human need to be included
-makes sense evolutionarily (basic human need)
-no matter what our personalities are like
-introverted people are uncertain about the benefits of interaction, but if you ask them how
they feel after interacting with someone, they are happier than when they are alone
-extroverts are much happier after they hang out with people
Ostracism
-Acts of excluding or ignoring
-In experiments, ostracism is manipulated by:
1.) feedback based on personality test that you are "likely to end up alone later in life" or
2) other participants choosing not to be in a group with you (voted off the island)
Causes:
1. Self-defeating behaviors (poor performance; eating too much, drinking too much, etc. )
2. drop in self-esteem
3. anxiety
Example of Ostracism Study
-5 investigators agreed to be ostracized by others for a day, and this caused "temporary
concern and anxiety paranoia"
-each day one of them would be completely ignored
-horrible experience, ostracism pretty powerful
-suggests that our need to connect to others is very central
The Person Next Door: The Propinquity Effect
,-One simple determinant of attraction is proximity or propinquity
-PROPINQUITY EFFECT: the more we see and interact with people, the more likely we are to
become friends and lovers
EXAMPLE: Festinger, Schachter, and Black tracked friendship formatin among couples in apt
buildings
-Residents named their 3 closest friends in the housing project (all different buildings in
compound
-Propinquity: 65% of friends lived in the same building
-Pattern of friendship within the same building
41% of next-door neighbors were close friends
22% of those two doors apart were close friends
only 10% of those who lived on opp ends of the hall were close friend
some room for individual personality to have influence, but physical location matters a lot
Propinquity in the Classroom
-College students introduced themselves the first day of psychology class
-assigned seats (random assignment)
-One year later, everyone given pictures of fellow students and rated how much they liked
them as a friend
-Results: the closer you were to a person in proximity the more you liked them
-Cognitive dissoance could encourage you to justify sitting next to people--keep sitting next to
them, social interaction and proximity becomes omore important
The Propinquity Effect: Spouses
-Architecture of Friendship: if you are new in town,try to get an apartment near the mailboxes,
desk next to coffee pot, parking spot near the main buildings
-because of the propinquity effect, we tend to marry people who live in the same neighborhood
or work at same company or live in the same class
-Pew (2006) found that 38% of married folks met when people crossed in neighborhood,
,church, or gym
-Propinquity gives you the opportunity to interact
Propinquity increases liking due to:
1. opportunity for interaction (get to learn each others' traits)
2. mere exposure
Mere Exposure Effect
The more we are exposed to a neutral or favorable stimulus, the more we like it
e.g. like a song: when we first hear it we dont like it but the 5th or 6th time we like it a lot more
-mere exposure leads us to like our mirror images better than our true image
-study found that people have better likeing for their mirror image, friend for their true image
-the more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more apt we are to like it. we see certain people
a lot-the more familiar they become, the more the friendship blooms
-if the person is an obnoxious jerk, htne then more exposure you have the more you dislike
them (in absense of negative qualities, familiarity breeds attraction and liking)
Favorite letters in the Alphabet (Propinquity example)
-If you asked French students their least favorite letter is a capital W: least-used letter in Frehch
-Everyone prefers the letters in their own name to other letters
-Also prefer places that we associate with the self
(e.g. Dispproportionate #s of Philips in Philadelphia, Jacks in Jacksonville, Virginias in Virginia
Beach-a lot of people with those names move to those places (Indication that names you
associate with yourself take on a positive meaningin
Similarity
-we are attracted to people who match our interests, attitudes, values, background, or
personality
"birds of a feather flock together"
Complentarity
, -We are attracted to people who are our opposites 'opposites attract"
Classic ways to study similarity and complementarity
Byrne attraction paradigm: in the lab college students indicated their own attitudes, then given
a description of a partner who shares attitudes or not
-people typically reported liking others who had attitudes similar to theirs (ATTITUDE
SIMILARITY EFFECT)
-True also for married couples
Similarity in Marriages
-spouse similarity--marital satisfaction agreeability increases compatibility and reduces conflict
REASON WHY SPOUSES SIMILAR:
1. Similarity causes marriages: preference to be with similar others
-Marraige causes similiarity: increases similarity over time (may pick up likes, hobbies, skills
from spouse)
3rd variable: shared social background: people are just more liekly to meet similar others
Similarity Among Newlyweds: Selection
-Study to see correlations between one spouses' personality iwth another
-Crrelations a lot higher between real couples: more similar in values, attitudes, and religious
beliefs but not for personality traits
-Utimately found that we tend to marry people who ahve similar attitudes to us (not just
shared social background and not just convergence, as similarity in attitudes did not increase in
longer relationships)
-Ethnicity, age, educational background did not account to the greater similarity in attitudes
Similar Attitudes: relationships
-Not just attitudes or demographics that are important-similar personality characteristics also
promote liking and attraction
-e.g. in a study of gay men's relationships men sough men with similar personalities
Correct
What Causes Attraction to Others?
-Basic human need to be included
-makes sense evolutionarily (basic human need)
-no matter what our personalities are like
-introverted people are uncertain about the benefits of interaction, but if you ask them how
they feel after interacting with someone, they are happier than when they are alone
-extroverts are much happier after they hang out with people
Ostracism
-Acts of excluding or ignoring
-In experiments, ostracism is manipulated by:
1.) feedback based on personality test that you are "likely to end up alone later in life" or
2) other participants choosing not to be in a group with you (voted off the island)
Causes:
1. Self-defeating behaviors (poor performance; eating too much, drinking too much, etc. )
2. drop in self-esteem
3. anxiety
Example of Ostracism Study
-5 investigators agreed to be ostracized by others for a day, and this caused "temporary
concern and anxiety paranoia"
-each day one of them would be completely ignored
-horrible experience, ostracism pretty powerful
-suggests that our need to connect to others is very central
The Person Next Door: The Propinquity Effect
,-One simple determinant of attraction is proximity or propinquity
-PROPINQUITY EFFECT: the more we see and interact with people, the more likely we are to
become friends and lovers
EXAMPLE: Festinger, Schachter, and Black tracked friendship formatin among couples in apt
buildings
-Residents named their 3 closest friends in the housing project (all different buildings in
compound
-Propinquity: 65% of friends lived in the same building
-Pattern of friendship within the same building
41% of next-door neighbors were close friends
22% of those two doors apart were close friends
only 10% of those who lived on opp ends of the hall were close friend
some room for individual personality to have influence, but physical location matters a lot
Propinquity in the Classroom
-College students introduced themselves the first day of psychology class
-assigned seats (random assignment)
-One year later, everyone given pictures of fellow students and rated how much they liked
them as a friend
-Results: the closer you were to a person in proximity the more you liked them
-Cognitive dissoance could encourage you to justify sitting next to people--keep sitting next to
them, social interaction and proximity becomes omore important
The Propinquity Effect: Spouses
-Architecture of Friendship: if you are new in town,try to get an apartment near the mailboxes,
desk next to coffee pot, parking spot near the main buildings
-because of the propinquity effect, we tend to marry people who live in the same neighborhood
or work at same company or live in the same class
-Pew (2006) found that 38% of married folks met when people crossed in neighborhood,
,church, or gym
-Propinquity gives you the opportunity to interact
Propinquity increases liking due to:
1. opportunity for interaction (get to learn each others' traits)
2. mere exposure
Mere Exposure Effect
The more we are exposed to a neutral or favorable stimulus, the more we like it
e.g. like a song: when we first hear it we dont like it but the 5th or 6th time we like it a lot more
-mere exposure leads us to like our mirror images better than our true image
-study found that people have better likeing for their mirror image, friend for their true image
-the more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more apt we are to like it. we see certain people
a lot-the more familiar they become, the more the friendship blooms
-if the person is an obnoxious jerk, htne then more exposure you have the more you dislike
them (in absense of negative qualities, familiarity breeds attraction and liking)
Favorite letters in the Alphabet (Propinquity example)
-If you asked French students their least favorite letter is a capital W: least-used letter in Frehch
-Everyone prefers the letters in their own name to other letters
-Also prefer places that we associate with the self
(e.g. Dispproportionate #s of Philips in Philadelphia, Jacks in Jacksonville, Virginias in Virginia
Beach-a lot of people with those names move to those places (Indication that names you
associate with yourself take on a positive meaningin
Similarity
-we are attracted to people who match our interests, attitudes, values, background, or
personality
"birds of a feather flock together"
Complentarity
, -We are attracted to people who are our opposites 'opposites attract"
Classic ways to study similarity and complementarity
Byrne attraction paradigm: in the lab college students indicated their own attitudes, then given
a description of a partner who shares attitudes or not
-people typically reported liking others who had attitudes similar to theirs (ATTITUDE
SIMILARITY EFFECT)
-True also for married couples
Similarity in Marriages
-spouse similarity--marital satisfaction agreeability increases compatibility and reduces conflict
REASON WHY SPOUSES SIMILAR:
1. Similarity causes marriages: preference to be with similar others
-Marraige causes similiarity: increases similarity over time (may pick up likes, hobbies, skills
from spouse)
3rd variable: shared social background: people are just more liekly to meet similar others
Similarity Among Newlyweds: Selection
-Study to see correlations between one spouses' personality iwth another
-Crrelations a lot higher between real couples: more similar in values, attitudes, and religious
beliefs but not for personality traits
-Utimately found that we tend to marry people who ahve similar attitudes to us (not just
shared social background and not just convergence, as similarity in attitudes did not increase in
longer relationships)
-Ethnicity, age, educational background did not account to the greater similarity in attitudes
Similar Attitudes: relationships
-Not just attitudes or demographics that are important-similar personality characteristics also
promote liking and attraction
-e.g. in a study of gay men's relationships men sough men with similar personalities
