Attraction
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Attraction is anything that draws two or more people together, making them want to be together and possibly to form a lasting relationship (Baumeister 2008). But what accounts for attraction between people? Commonsense seems to offer some insight on the matter with sayings such as “opposites attract” and “birds of a feather flock together”. However, these two sayings do not give us much purchase on the matter since they suggest opposite reasons for attraction. Is it that people are drawn to those who are dissimilar from them? Or does attraction occur when there are more similarities between people?
An article written by Byrne, Smeaton, & Clore (1986), “The Attraction Hypothesis: Do Similar Attitudes Affect Anything?” may help to clarify the relationship between similarity and attraction. The paper was a critique of a study by Rosenbaum (1986). Rosenbaum created a four attraction experiment to prove that similarity does not lead to attraction rather dissimilarity lead to repulsion (Rosenbaum 1986). Rosenbaum found that similar attitudes do not lead to liking and therefore have no effect on attraction. Byrne et al. (1986) provided three main critiques of this finding. One, Rosenbaum did not compare similar attitude conditions with a neutral control condition and instead compared them with a positive trait condition .By doing this information that was left out led to the participants to already assume attitude similarity. Rosenbaum added information to the control condition without realizing the effect of it. According to Byrne, “human subjects think and their cognitive activity fills in information even though the experimenter may leave it out” (Byrne et al. 1986 p. 1167). Second, the proportion of similar and dissimilar attitudes varied methodically. Because attraction is influenced by proportion, the various numbers of similar and dissimilar attitudes are not seen as significant. Finally, he concluded that additional descriptive information should be treated qualitatively with all other information presented to the participants. Descriptive information would be physical appearance and occupation. The article concluded that Rosenbaum’s study did not prove that similar attitudes do not lead to liking. Byrne proposed the alternative explanation that having negative information about others leads to a straying away from others who are dissimilar. Byrne at al also suggested that those who have positive information would be more attracted to those who are similar and this will lead to building lasting relationship. There are findings that suggest people are more drawn to similarities such as age, race, educational level, beliefs and values and this in turn will enhance attraction (Byrne et al. 1986).
This view that similarity leads to attraction goes well with research looking at the physical attractiveness of couples. A couple is first drawn to one another by physical attraction and this develops into a long lasting relationship based on how one complement/balance one another (Murstein & Christy 1976). Murstein & Christy hypothesized that there would be a correlation between physical attractiveness and marriage adjustment in middle-aged couples. They also looked at whether there is equity in physical attractiveness and whether people perceive their partner as more attractive than them. Murstein & Christy used three measurements of physical attractiveness: photos, self evaluation and evaluation of spouse. They presented Polaroid pictures of the couples and had them rate self and partner for physical attractiveness. Participants tended to overestimate their own attractiveness as well as their partner’s. Importantly, objective ratings of attractiveness showed that members of a couple were equally attractive. This finding suggests that similarity does lead to attraction. It also reflects on the matching hypothesis which “states that people tend to pair up with others who are equally attractive (Baumeister 2008). The article concluded, “the strength of the relationship of physical attractiveness to marriage adjustment depends on the importance of physical attractiveness to the individual’s evaluation of his marriage” (Murstein & Christy 1976 p. 541).
Physical attraction is related to similarities where a person is attracted to those they find similar to them. There is the social exchange theory which suggested that good looking people are more likely to select one another as partners while the less attractive people select each other (Kalick & Hamilton, 1986). In addition, there is the “what is beautiful is good” effect where people assume that those who are physically attractive have positive traits. (Eagly et al, 1991). Many researchers developed these theories to explain the concept of attraction.
References
Baumeister, R.F. & Bushman, B. (2008). Social Psychology and Human Nature (1st Edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Byrne, D., Clore, G., & Smeaton, G. (1986). The Attraction Hypothesis: Do Similar Attitudes Affect Anything? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 51, 1167-1170.
Eagly, A.H., Ashmore, R.D., Makhijano, M.G., & Longo, L.C. (1991). What Is Beautiful Is Good, But…: A Meta-Analytic Review of Research on the Physical Attractiveness Stereotype. Psychological Bulletin. Vol. 110, No. 1, 109-128.
Kalick, S.B., & Baral, R.L. (1970). The matching hypothesis reexamined. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 673-682.
Murstein, B.I. & Christy, P. (1976). Physical Attractiveness and Marriage Adjustment in Middle-aged Couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 537-542
Rosenbaum, M.E. (1986). The acquaintance process: Looking mainly backward. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1156-1166.
