Similarity-Attraction Theory

Interpersonal Attraction Factors affecting attraction 1. Need for Affiliation 1. Evolution 1. Proximity 1. Emotion 1. Attractiveness 1. Similarity 1. Theories of Attraction Evolution 1. It is adaptive – perpetuation of species 1. E.g. Men attractive due to wealth, power, social status – providers 1. Women attractive due to looks - fertility Need for Affiliation What is? • The motive to seek and maintain social relationships • Neurobiology

Dictionary (n.d.), attraction is referred to as allurement or enticement, or in physics terms, a magnetic force between oppositely charged bodies that draws them together. But in a field that is not tangible, such as social psychology, defining attraction is a bit more complex, as there is no magnetic force between humans. There are often no words to explain why one becomes attracted to a specific individual. Psychologists have proposed five factors that best determine attractions. These factors

Factors affecting immediate attraction Attraction is one of the most important factors in a relationship. There are multiple factors that play a role in the level of attraction between two humans. Firstly physical attractiveness is a factor that influences our first impression of the other. Research on the importance of physical attractiveness as a factor of choosing one’s partner proposed the “Matching Hypothesis” (Anon,2017) which suggests that people have a tendency to pick partners who have

matters. The three basic anomalies are the similarity effect (Tversky, 1972), the attraction effect (Huber, Payne and Puto, 1982) and the compromise effect (Simonson, 1989). Theorists have tried explaining these effects by various approaches. For example, the multi-alternative decision field theory (Roe, Busemeyer and Townsend, 2001) can explain all the three effects. In addition, Tversky (1972) applied the elimination by aspects model to illustrate the similarity effect and Tversky and Simonson (1993)

surveyed that flattery is the best was to attract someone (Dating/Relationship Statistics). Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania studied data from over 10,000 speed daters and found that most people make a decision regarding a person’s attraction within three seconds of meeting (Penn New ). Whether it is the friends we choose or our romantic partners there is something that attracts us to the other person in these relationships. Maybe something that unknowingly leads us to develop a relationship

Interpersonal attraction, as defined by social psychologists, refers to attitudinal positivity (Huston and Levinger, 1978). Although, this attitudinal positivity may not refer a romantic attraction, it still refers to an attraction that is compelling enough to form a relationship with another individual. Interpersonal relationships are formed when an individual feels the ‘need to affiliate’. This ‘need to affiliate’ is critically important to human beings. Individuals who achieve high levels of affiliation

I found it interesting that the authors found that actual similarity did not predict romantic attraction, that in fact similarity was significantly or marginally related to romantic liking for 6 of the 26 results were in the expected direction. They also found that significant effect of socio-sexuality similarity on liking, and socio-sexuality shares some conceptual overlap with extraversion. In conclusion they did prove their theory. From this study

One noted theory in study is the similarity theory. The similarity theory can be summed up the idea that targets that are highly similar to distractors are more difficulty to discriminate against, while targets that are disparate from distractors are easy to locate; when similarity between and a distractor increases, so does the difficulty in detecting the target stimuli and vice versa (Sternberg

Critical Evaluationg of Psychological Theories of Interpersonal Attraction Interpersonal Attraction suggests as attraction between people, and although it may not in terms of a romantic relationship scenario as the phrase suggests, it nethertheless suggests an important attraction to create a relationship with a particular person. It may by that we are attracted to a particular person or a social relationship because we find them pleasant or because we find life alone unpleasant

Literature Review Paper Comm 306 Uncertainty Reduction Theory Uncertainty is an unpleasant feeling and because of this feeling, people are motivated to reduce this uncertainty by means of communication. Uncertainty reduction theory (URT) was developed to describe the interrelationships in any type of communication exchange using seven factors: verbal communication, nonverbal expressiveness, information-seeking behavior, intimacy, reciprocity, similarity, and liking (Berger & Calabrese, 1975). During