Interpersonal Attraction

Interpersonal Attraction and Close Relationships

Today

- What is interpersonal attraction and how is it studied?

- basic motives in social psychology

- reciprocal liking

- the matching hypothesis

Interpersonal Attraction

Q What makes us like someone, want to be friends with someone, or want to date someone?

Basic motives from social psychology

1. to be liked and accepted by others

2. to feel good about ourselves

Reciprocal Liking

we like people better who like us _ Eye contact, Leaning in, Attentive listening

Level of Aspiration Theory

- Whether people try to pursue and achieve certain goals ( including trying to become friends with someone or date them ) is affected by the desirability of the goal and one’s likelihood of attaining it.

- people know themselves and are realistic.

The Matching Hypothesis

- people will pursue people who are similarly socially desirable to them

- social desirability often operationalized as physical attraction

The Matching hypothesis and this class

Q What is your strategy for trying to pursue potential romantic partners ?

A I try and pursue the most physically attractive people possible

A I try to pursue people who are about as physically attractive as I am

A I try to pursue people who are less physically attractive than I am

Q Are your answers consistent with  the matching hypothesis ?

Q Why is asking people what they tend to do not the best way to test the matching hypothesis ?

A self-report

A hypothetical

Q What would be better?

Classical Psychological Study of Matching Hypothesis 

Physical Attractiveness and Liking Study _ Walster Et Al, 1966

- Participants 376 men and 376 women who bought tickets to a dance for new first year students at the University of Minnesota

- told a computer would match them with a date based on their interests

- physical attractiveness secretly rated by 4 raters

- dates were randomly assigned

Procedure

1. told a computer would match them with a date based on their interests

2. physical attractiveness secretly rated by 4 raters

3. dates were randomly assigned ( men were never assigned dates with taller women )

: Participants rated their dates halfway through the dance

: Contacted 4 to 6 months later and asked if they tried to go out with their data again

Results

- Participants liked and attempted to date people who were the most physically attractive

 : regardless of their own level of physical attractiveness

 : personality and intelligence mattered very little

- Does not support the matching hypothesis

Big Data Study of the Matching Hypothesis

Online Dating Study _ Shaw Taylorm Fiore, Mendelsohn & Cheshire, 2011

- method used online dating activity logs for over 1 million online daters ( data exhaust )

 : computed popularity based on how often each person was contacted

 : hypothesis – more popular people will contact each other

- results popular people contacted and were contacted by other popular people (all correlations positive and significant)

 : consistent with matching hypothesis

The Matching Hypothesis

Q Is the matching hypothesis supported based on past research?

A It is not entirely clear. It depends on how researchers operationalize social desirability and where in the process they focus ( choosing who to approach, whether the person reciprocates, etc )