The psychology course I have been following features a Valentine’s Day lecture about love. Mostly, it is about what seems to make people attracted to one another, as demonstrated by psychological experiments.
Professor Peter Salovey, the guest lecturer, argues that we have empirical evidence for seven major causes of attraction. Three of them are fairly obvious, but very demonstrably important. The next four are more subtle, but are also supported by experimental investigation.
The big three:
- Proximity – we are more likely to get romantically involved with those who we live near
- Familiarity – the more we see a person, the more likely we are to get involved with them
- Similarity – apparently, opposites do not attract
The practical utility of this is obvious, for those looking for a romantic partner. Move to an area with people who you find attractive, and participate in social events with like-minded people, so as to improve your odds of being similar to and familiar with attractive people.
The more subtle four:
- Competence – the people who we like the very best are those that strike us as highly competent, but who make some sort of humanizing blunder
- Physical attractiveness – many people underestimate how important a factor this is for themselves
- An increasingly positive view – if someone seems to be warming towards us, it is highly interesting
- Mis-attribution of good feelings – we feel good or excited for a reason unrelated to a person, but wrongly attribute the feeling to them
These all also suggest dating strategies. The last two seem particularly easy to manipulate. It is also worth noting that we are most attracted to people who seem to be very exclusive in their choice of partners, but who we do not expect to be picky or difficult in our case. That may not be enough to constitute a Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm, but it might be helpful for some people.
Mis-attribution of good feelings might be the most interesting thing on this list:
Experiments have shown that all sorts of situations that prompt general arousal can also make people feel attracted to those around them. These include crossing a rickety bridge, listening to a rapid heartbeat, and being told that an upcoming experiment in which they are a subject will involve painful electric shocks.
The dating message: amusement parks and rock climbing might be good first date ideas.
I found this significantly more concise and useful than that RNDP dinosaur thing
Those are interesting factors of attraction. I wonder if they differ from culture to culture and to what extent they are socialized. I have read somewhere that a person decides about his/her attraction to another person in less than 3 seconds. When I ask my students from Asia and Africa what attracted them to their partners, they almost always say that it was because they came from a “good family,” were well-educated and had a god job or prospects for the future.
Is the rest of the course worth listening to? I have never taken a psych course but have developed an interest in it. I also do generally like iTunes U courses.
I would definitely say so.
I have now listened to the whole thing, and found each lecture very interesting. I am also planning to get the textbook and reader eventually, but that will need to wait until I have worked through some of the three dozen books I am currently at some stage in reading.
Justice Not As Blind As Previously Thought
“I doubt this is much of a surprise but apparently Cornell University did a study that seems to show you’re more likely to get convicted if you’re ugly. From the article: ‘According to a Cornell University study, unattractive defendants are 22 percent more likely to be convicted than good-looking ones. And the unattractive also get slapped with harsher sentences — an average of 22 months longer in prison.'”
I am surprised I didn’t already quote one of my favourite bits of the course, which definitely relates to the question of romantic attraction:
It is both comic and poignant when spoken by Professor Bloom. Video links are here.
Good quote, but your link points to the wrong image.
Thanks for pointing that out. I altered my earlier comment.
Unfortunately, there is no elegant way to link directly to the Flash video.
The television series Invader Zim provides an especially colourful illustration of the Matthew Effect.
Zim is part of the warlike Irkin race, who are determined to conquer the universe and use height to determine an individual’s social status. Their leaders, naturally, are called ‘The Tallest.’
In the first episode, The Tallest are assigning Irkin Invaders to planets that they are meant to research and help conquer. One especially short Invader is told that he was going to be sent to the Planet Blorch – “home of the slaughtering rat people.”
Given that he has grown, however, they send him to the Planet Vort, which contains the most comfortable couch in the universe.
An even shorter Invader gets sent to Blorch.
The science of the booty call
Xeni Jardin at 1:34 PM Monday, Aug 9, 2010
“As much as you want to escape your biology, there it is, in your face. Humans have the illusion that they can escape their biology, but we’re just like any other animal, the difference is our leash is longer. It appears that we have all this freedom to make these choices, but we really don’t.”—University of South Alabama psychology professor Peter K. Jonason, author of the scientific treatise “Positioning the Booty-Call Relationship on the Spectrum of Relationships” [PDF]
SMBC on choosing romantic partners
Uncomfortable truthasaurus
When we like someone, we focus on their best feature. When we dislike them, on their worst.
Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult
The court ruled a white teen who stabbed a classmate to death will face the jury as a 300-pound black man.
Love at first byte
Online-dating sites have made it easier for people to click with one another. But they still leave something to be desired
FOR the lovelorn, the new year can be an unhappy time, as they cast envious glances in the direction of lovey-dovey couples at the season’s parties. For online-dating agencies, it is a golden opportunity, as people who have spent the holidays ruminating over unsatisfactory or non-existent love lives log on in their thousands, hoping to find romance—ideally before February 14th. “The period between New Year’s Day and Valentine’s Day is our busiest six weeks of the year,” explains Sam Yagan, the boss of OkCupid, a big American dating site.
Once seen as the last resort for a bunch of lonely geeks, online-dating services have gradually shed much of the stigma formerly associated with them. Although they are still popular with tech types—Julian Assange, the mercurial co-founder of WikiLeaks, reportedly once maintained profiles on dating sites under the name “Harry Harrison”—they now attract millions of people from many walks of life. ComScore, a research firm, says Match and Zoosk, two large dating services based in the United States, saw 4.6m and 4.8m unique visitors respectively come to their American sites in November 2010. Meetic, Europe’s biggest dating service, also boasts millions of users.
Blowing cyberkisses has become a popular pastime in emerging markets too. In countries and cultures in which arranged marriages are common, sites such as India’s Shaadi and BharatMatrimony, which boast many millions of clients, are a big hit with young people who want to influence how their marriage partners are chosen. And a number of sizeable digital matchmakers, including Jiayuan and Zhenai, have risen to prominence in China. Deepak Kamra of Canaan Partners, an American venture-capital firm that has backed several dating services, including Zoosk and BharatMatrimony, estimates that the industry’s revenues from membership fees and advertising now amount to $3 billion-4 billion a year.
The Misconception: You always know why you feel the way you feel.
The Truth: You can experience emotional states without knowing why, even if you believe you can pinpoint the source.
The bridge is still in British Columbia, still long and scary, still sagging across the Capilano Canyon daring people to traverse it.
If you were to place the Statue of Liberty underneath the bridge, base and all, it would lightly drape across her copper shoulders. It is about as wide as a park bench for its entire suspended length, and when you try to cross, feeling it sway and rock in the wind, hearing it creak and buckle, it is difficult to take your eyes off of the rocks and roaring water two-hundred and thirty feet below – far enough for you feel in your stomach the distance between you and a messy, crumpled death. Not everyone makes it across.
In 1974, psychologists Art Aron and Donald Dutton hired a woman to stand in the middle of this suspension bridge. As men passed her on their way across, she asked them if they would be willing to fill out a questionnaire. At the end of the questions, she asked them to examine an illustration of a lady covering her face and then make up a back story to explain it. She then told each man she would be more than happy to discuss the study further if he wanted to call her that night, and tore off a portion of the paper, wrote down her number, and handed it over.
The economics of good looks
The line of beauty
Pretty people still get the best deals in the market, from labour to love
FRANCE looked back this week at the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the walls of the Louvre. It was one of the most startling art heists in history, but the emotions it still arouses go beyond that. Stealing Leonardo da Vinci’s painting was like stealing beauty itself. And beauty has lost none of its power to bewitch, bother and get its own way, as three new books on the economic advantages of good looks confirm.
Physically attractive women and men earn more than average-looking ones, and very plain people earn less. In the labour market as a whole (though not, for example, in astrophysics), looks have a bigger impact on earnings than education, though intelligence—mercifully enough— is valued more highly still.
Beauty is naturally rewarded in jobs where physical attractiveness would seem to matter, such as prostitution, entertainment, customer service and so on. But it also yields rewards in unexpected fields. Homely NFL quarterbacks earn less than their comelier counterparts, despite identical yards passed and years in the league. Not everything comes easier: good-looking women seeking high-flying jobs in particularly male fields may be stymied by the “bimbo effect” until they prove their competence and commitment. But the importance of beauty in the labour market is far more pervasive than one might think.
Cute 8-Year-Old Starting To Realize How Much Better She Is Than Ugly Girls
WINNEMUCCA, NV—Eight-year-old Ella Neumark said Saturday that in recent weeks she has become increasingly aware of how her adorable physical characteristics make her superior to unattractive girls.
Ella told reporters she has only lately begun to appreciate how her wide, expressive eyes, shiny blond hair, and flawlessly straight teeth cause her to be a far more worthy human being than her less appealing peers.
“I never really noticed it before, but my prettiness makes me better than every girl who isn’t as pretty as me,” Ella said. “The face I have means I deserve more attention than anyone whose face isn’t as good.”
“Mrs. Hothan calls on me all the time in class because my eyes, nose, and mouth are a certain way, and that’s why she also gives me more time to answer questions,” Ella continued. “She likes to look at me, so she’s nice to me. Other girls don’t get treated as nice because they aren’t nearly as good to look at. That’s so amazing.”
Ella’s growing recognition that her cuteness endows her with intrinsically greater value than girls who are overweight or possess thick eyebrows has reportedly caused her to see her friendships differently. The third-grader said she has begun to fully understand that she can in fact exploit her appearance to obtain benefits she believes she is entitled to.
Bradley Ruffle at Ben-Gurion University and Ze’ev Shtudiner at Ariel University Centre looked at what happens when job hunters include photos with their curricula vitae, as is the norm in much of Europe and Asia. The pair sent fictional applications to over 2,500 real-life vacancies. For each job, they sent two very similar résumés, one with a photo, one without. Subjects had previously been graded for their attractiveness.
For men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more likely to be called for an interview if they included a photo. Ugly men were better off not including one. However, for women this was reversed. Attractive females were less likely to be offered an interview if they included a mugshot. When applying directly to a company (rather than through an agency) an attractive woman would need to send out 11 CVs on average before getting an interview; an equally qualified plain one just seven.
U of T psychologists find that dating outside your type is harder than you think
…
“It’s common that when a relationship ends or after a series of relationships,” says psychology PhD student Yoobin Park, “people attribute the breakup to their ex-partners’ personalities and decide they need to date a different type of person.
“However,” she explains, “our research suggests there’s a tendency to continue to date a similar personality.” In other words, a resolution in a diary isn’t enough to overcome our attraction to a particular type.
“And if you find you’re having the same issues, relationship after relationship,” suggests Park, “you may want to think about how gravitating toward the same personality traits in a partner is contributing to the consistency in your problems.”
…
Their data came from a nine-year study conducted in Germany that measured responses to 21 statements such as:
I am usually modest and reserved
I get enthusiastic easily and can motivate others easily
I tend to be the strong and silent type
I am extroverted
I am relaxed and don’t let myself be worried by stress
I am intellectual and like to contemplate things
I appreciate artistic and aesthetic impressions
Respondents were asked to rate their disagreement or agreement with the statements on a five-point scale.
Consistency between individuals’ past and current romantic partners’ own reports of their personalities
Yoobin Park and Geoff MacDonald
PNAS June 25, 2019 116 (26) 12793-12797; first published June 10, 2019
Although a romantic partner’s personality creates an interpersonal environment that can be highly consequential for emotional and physical well-being, little research has examined to what degree romantic partners’ personalities are similar across relationships. In this study, we provide evidence of stability in partner personality, implementing a rigorous analysis using self-reports of personalities from both past and current partners themselves. The significant degree of unique similarity between an individual’s past and current partners could not be explained by important potential confounds. Our results also provided tentative evidence that this similarity is weaker for people who are more extraverted or open to experience.