INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION (CONTINUEâ€¦â€¦..):Physical attractiveness

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Lesson 29

INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION (CONTINUE........)

Aims

To introduce the concept of interpersonal attraction and related concepts

Objectives

· To describe the characteristics of others as important factors in interpersonal attraction.

· To discuss the situations when social interaction becomes problematic

Characteristics of others & attraction

The following characteristics of others have been involved in interpersonal attraction:

Physical attractiveness

Similarity

Desirable personal attributes

Physical attractiveness

Despite the old sayings that "beauty is only skin deep" and "you can't judge a book by its cover", We tend

to operate according to Aristotle's 2000-year-old pronouncement that "personal beauty is a greater

recommendation than any letter of introduction."

Research on physical attractiveness stereotype

What is beautiful is good:

In one of the first studies of the physical attractiveness stereotype, Karen Berscheid, and Elaine [Walster]

Hatfield (1972) asked college students to look at pictures of men and women who either were good-

looking, average, or homely and to then evaluate their personalities. Results indicated that the students

tended to assume that physically attractive persons possessed a host of socially desirable personality traits

relative to those who were unattractive. This physical attractiveness effect has also been documented in

Hollywood movies. Steven Smith and his coworkers (1999) asked people to watch the 100 most popular

movies between 1940 and 1990 and to evaluate the movies' main characters. Consistent with the physical

attractiveness stereotype, beautiful and handsome characters were significantly more likely to be portrayed

as virtuous, romantically active, and successful than their less attractive counterparts. Over the past thirty-

five years, many researchers have examined this stereotype, and two separate meta-analyses of these

studies reveal that physically attractive people are perceived to be more sociable, successful, happy,

dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, intelligent, and socially skilled than those who are unattractive

(Eagly et al., 1991; Feingold 1992).

Cross-cultural differences:

Although these findings are based solely on samples from individualist cultures, the

physical

attractiveness stereotype also occurs in collectivist cultures, but its content is a bit different.

Research with children:

The positive glow generated by physical attractiveness is not reserved solely for adults. Attractive infants

are perceived by adults as more likable, sociable, competent, and easy to care for than unattractive babies

(Casey & Ritter, 1996).

Attractiveness and job-related outcomes:

Field and laboratory studies conducted in both individualist and collectivist cultures indicate that physical

attractiveness does have a moderate impact in a variety of job-related outcomes, including hiring, salary,

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and promotion decisions. In one representative study, Irene Frieze and her coworkers (1991) obtained

information on the career success of more than 700 former MBA graduates of the 1973 to 1982 classes at

the University of Pittsburgh. They also judged former students' facial attractiveness based on photos taken

during their final year in school. Results indicated that there was about a $2,200 difference between the

starting salaries of good-looking men and those with slow average faces. For women, facial attractiveness

did not influence their starting salaries, but it did substantially impact their later salaries. Once hired,

women who were above average in facial attractiveness typically earned $4,200 more per year than women

who were below average in attractiveness. For attractive and unattractive men, this difference in earning

power per year was $5,200. Further, although neither height nor weight affected a woman's starting salary,

being 20% or more overweight reduced a man's starting salary by more than $2,000. Overall, the research

literature informs us that physical appearance does indeed influence success on the job.

Obesity and attractiveness bias:

· People who are obese are stigmatized and face discrimination in the workplace.

· The negative view occurs because people are seen as responsible for their weight.

· Anti-fat prejudice is strongest in individualistic cultures (Crandall et al., 2001).

Who is Attractive?

Culture plays a large role in standards of attractiveness. However, people do tend to agree on some features

that are seen as more attractive:

· Statistically "average" faces

· Symmetrical or balanced faces

Taking into consideration all the cross-cultural research, it appears that - all things being equal--men prefer

women with relatively low waist-to-hip ratios because this body type signifies youth, fertility, and current

non-pregnancy. However, in environments where people face frequent food shortages, male preference

shifts to a higher female waist-to-hip ratio because this body type signifies greater ability to both produce

and nurse offspring when food is scarce.

Beyond body type, there is also evidence that there may be universal standards of facial attractiveness. For

example, a number of studies indicate that we prefer faces in which right and left sides are well matched or

symmetrical (Chen et al., 1997; Mealey et al., 1999). Facial symmetry was one thing that Lucy Grealy's

plastic surgeons tried unsuccessfully to restore in countless operations (see lecture 28 for reference).

Evolutionary psychologists contend that we refer facial symmetry because symmetry generally indicates

physical health and the lack f genetic defects,

Besides symmetry influencing attractiveness, studies of people's perceptions of young men and women's

individual faces and composite faces (computer-generated "averages" of all the individual faces), indicate

that what people judge most attractive are faces that represent the "average" face in the population

(Langlois et al., 1994). This tendency to define physical attractiveness according to the "average rule" has

been found in many cultures (Jones & Hill, 1993; Pollard, 1995).

Evolutionary psychologists further contend that, besides symmetry and averageness, youthfulness and

maturity figure into facial attractiveness judgments. Consistent with this hypothesis, a number of studies

have found that possessing youthful or slightly immature facial features (large eyes, small nose, full lips,

small chin, delicate jaw) enhances female attractiveness, while possessing mature facial characteristics

related to social dominance, broad forehead, thick eyebrows, thin lips, large jaw) increases the

attractiveness of males (Cunningham, 1986; Johnston & Franklin, 1993).

Why does attractiveness matter?

· People believe attractiveness is correlated with other positive characteristics (consistent with

implicit personality theory).

· Being associated with an attractive other leads a person to be seen as more attractive him or herself.

· According to evolutionary theory, attractiveness may provide a clue to health and reproductive

fitness.

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Is the attractiveness stereotype accurate?

Alan Feingold (1992b) conducted a meta-analysis of more than ninety studies that investigated whether

physically attractive and physically unattractive people actually differed in their basic personality traits. His

analysis indicated no significant relationships between physical attractiveness and such traits as

intelligence, dominance, self-esteem, and mental health.

Birds of a feather really do flock together: Similarity

Social Psychological research generally indicates that we are attracted to those who are similar to us.

Demographic similarity:

Research on high school friendships found that students identified their best friends as those who were

similar to them in sex, race, age, and year in school.

Attitudinal similarity:

In Newcomb's boardinghouse study (as mentioned previously), similarity in age and family background not

only influenced interpersonal attraction, but similarity in attitudes also provided mutual liking, Unlike

physical and demographic characteristics, it generally takes lime to learn another person's attitudes. In

laboratory studies, Dorm Byrne and his colleagues accelerated the getting-acquainted process by having

participants complete attitude questionnaires and later "introducing" them to another person by having

them read his or her responses to a similar questionnaire (Byrne & Nelson, 1965; Schoneman et al., 1977).

The researchers had actually filled out the questionnaire so that the answers were either similar or

dissimilar to the participants' own attitudinal responses. The results showed that the participants expressed

much stronger liking when they thought they shared a greater percentage of similar attitudes with the

individual. This finding is important, for it suggests that the proportion of similar attitudes is more

important than the actual number of similar attitudes. Thus, we should be more attracted to someone who

agrees with us on four of six topics (66 percent similarity) than one with whom we share similar opinions

on ten of twenty-five topics (40 percent similarity). The graph given below describes more clearly the

relationship between attitude similarity and attraction.

Similarity in physical

attractiveness:

In fact, researchers who

have observed couples

in public settings have

found that they are

remarkably

well

matched in physical

attractiveness

(Feingold, 1988). One

possible reason why we

are attracted to potential

romantic partners who

are similar to us in

physical attractiveness

is that we estimate they

have about the same

social exchange value

as us.

This tendency to be

attracted to others who

are similar to us in particular characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, is known as the matching

hypothesis, and it appears to be a socially shared belief (Stiles et al., 1996). We expect that people who

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

have similar levels of physical attractiveness will be more satisfied as couples than those who are phys-

ically mismatched.

Desirable Personal Attributes

· Warmth

o People appear warm when they have a positive attitude and express liking, praise, and

approval.

Nonverbal behaviors such as smiling, attentiveness, and expressing emotions also

contribute to perceptions of warmth.

Competence

o We like people who are socially skilled, intelligent, and competent.

The type of competence that matters most depends on the nature of the relationship., e.g.,

social skills for friends, knowledge for professors will be preferred. However, being "too

perfect" can be off-putting

When social interaction becomes problematic

Whenever we approach others, we risk rejection. Even if others do accept our

social overtures, there is the further possibility that we may commit a social blunder that

will cause them to form a negative impression of us.

Social anxiety can keep us isolated from others

Social anxiety is the unpleasant emotion we experience due to our concern with interpersonal evaluation

(Leary & Kowalski, 1995). This anxiety is what causes us to occasionally (or frequently) avoid social

interaction. We can experience social anxiety even when alone: simply anticipating social interaction is

often sufficient to arouse it.

The unfortunate consequence of social anxiousness is that it can trap a person into increasingly unpleasant

social exchanges (DePaulo et al., 1990). Highly socially anxious people anxiously expect, readily perceive,

and intensely react to rejection cues in their surroundings (Downey et al., 2004). For example, they are

more attentive to faces with negative expressions than they are to those with positive or neutral expressions

(Pishyar et al., 2004). This attentional bias in noticing negative social feedback results in highly anxious

persons often acting in ways--avoiding eye contact, appearing nervous and jittery--that fulfill the self-

prophecy (Pozo et al., 1991).

Defining and measuring loneliness

Loneliness is defined as having a smaller or less satisfying network of social and intimate relationships

than we desire (Green et al., 2001).

Age, gender, culture and loneliness

Numerous studies have identified the young--adolescents and young adults--as the loneliest age groups

(Peplau et al., 1982), As people mature and move beyond the young adult years, their loneliness tends to

decrease until relatively late in life, when factors such as poor health and the death of loved ones increase

social isolation (Green et al., 2001). One reason why adolescents and young adults may be lonelier than

older individuals is that young people face many more social transitions, such as falling in and out of love

for the first time, leaving family and friends, and training and searching for a full-time job--all of which

can cause loneliness (Oswald & Clark, 2003).

There are clear age differences in loneliness, but gender differences are not as clear-cut. Some studies have

found a slight tendency for women to report greater loneliness than men, yet other studies fail to find any

differences at all (Archibald et al., 1995; Brage et al., 1993). Despite any firm evidence for gender

differences in the degree of loneliness, there does appear to be evidence that men and women feel lonely

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

for different reasons. Men tend to feel lonely when deprived of group interaction; women are more likely to

feel lonely when they lack one-to-one emotional sharing (Stokes & Levin, 1986).

Social skills deficits and loneliness

Similar to the negative consequences of social anxiousness, chronically lonely people often think and

behave in ways that reduce their likelihood of establishing new and rewarding relationships. Studies

conducted with college students illustrate some of these self-defeating patterns of behavior. Typically, in

these investigations, students who are strangers to one another are asked to briefly interact in either pairs or

groups, after which they rate themselves and their partners on such interpersonal dimensions as

friendliness, honesty, and openness, Compared with individuals, nonlonely college students rate themselves

negatively following such laboratory interactions. They perceive themselves as having been less friendly,

less honest and open, and less warm (Christensen & Kashy, 1998; Jones et al., 1983). They also expect

those who interact with them to perceive them in this negative manner. This expectation of failure in social

interaction appears all the more hopeless to the chronically lonely because they believe that improving their

social life is beyond their control (Duck et al., 1994).

Reading

Franzoi, S. (2003). Social Psychology. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 11.

Other Readings

· Lord, C.G. (1997). Social Psychology. Orlando: Harcourt Brace and Company. Chapter 8.

· David G. Myers, D. G. (2002). Social Psychology (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Lesson 30

INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS

Aims

To introduce the concept of intimate relationships, attachment styles and later adult relationships

Objectives

To discuss what is intimacy?

To describe how self concepts of important others are manifested in one's own self schemas

To discuss attachment as an adaptive response

To describe link between different attachment styles & later adult relationships:

To discuss attachment styles and romantic relationships as well as friendships

Applied Social Psychology Lab

In the previous lecture, it was pointed out that social skill deficit is likely cause of loneliness, which is the

primary reason of low self esteem. Applied social Psychology Lab exercise highlights the appropriate

social skills, as mentioned below, required for interpersonal interaction.

Amount of personal attention given to one's partner in interaction

Ability to recognize and conform to social norms

Regulating one's mood prior to commencing social interaction

Training includes observation, modeling, role playing, observing one's own interaction on videotape,

speaking on phone, giving compliments, actively listening, etc.

Research has indicated that participation in this kind of training shows improvement in social skills and an

increased level of social satisfaction (Erwin, 1994).

Student's Activity

In the following exercise, you are to think of one person who is a close friend, and another person who you

know fairly well but whom you believe you are unlikely to become close to. After you have decided on the

people who will be rating, first rate yourself on whether or not you have each of the characteristics listed by

placing a check on the line for each characteristic that describes you. Then do the same thing for your close

friend and for your acquaintance.

Traits

Self

Close friend

Acquaintance

/ Non-Friend

Outgoing

Soft-Hearted

Organized

Creative

Independent

Conscientious

Quiet

Tough-minded

Efficient

Calm

Practical

Adventurous

Trusting

Passive

Generous

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