Social Psychology - Attraction and Intimacy PDF

CHAPTER 10 Attraction and Intimacy: Liking and Loving Others Source: ©Jack Hollingsworth/Blend Images LLC. CHAPTER OUTLINE What Leads to Friendship and Attraction? What Is Love? What Enables Close Relationships? How Do Relationships End? Our lifelo...

CHAPTER 10 Attraction and Intimacy: Liking and Loving Others Source: ©Jack Hollingsworth/Blend Images LLC. CHAPTER OUTLINE What Leads to Friendship and Attraction? What Is Love? What Enables Close Relationships? How Do Relationships End? Our lifelong dependence on one another puts relationships at the core of our existence. In your beginning, there very likely was an attraction—an attraction between two specific people. Aristotle called humans “the social animal.” 342 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS I ndeed, we have what today’s social psychologists call a need to belong—to connect with others in enduring, close relationships.!This need forms the basis for what we explore in this chapter: How and why we like and love others, both romantically and as friends. Social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary (1995) illustrated the power of social attachments: For our ancestors, mutual attachments enabled group survival. When hunting game or erecting shelter, 10 hands were better than two. The bonds of love can lead to children, whose survival chances are boosted by the nurturing of two bonded parents who support each other need to belong A motivation to (Fletcher et al., 2015). bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing, positive Relationships consume much of life. How much of your waking life is interactions. spent talking with people? One sampling of 10!000 tape recordings of half- minute slices of students’ waking hours (using belt-worn recorders) found them talking to someone 28 percent of the time—and that doesn’t count the time they spent listening to someone (Mehl & Pennebaker, 2003). When not face to face, the world’s nearly 8 billion people connect by voice and texting or through social networks such as Instagram. The average 18-year-old spends about two hours a day sending texts and just under two hours on social media (Twenge, 2017). Our need to belong motivates our investment in being continuously connected. For people everywhere, actual and hoped-for close relationships can dominate thinking and emotions. Finding a supportive person in whom we can confide, we feel accepted and prized. Falling in love, we feel irrepressible joy. When relation- ships with partners, family, and friends are healthy, self-esteem—a barometer of our relationships—rides high (Denissen et al., 2008). Longing for acceptance and love, we spend billions on cosmetics, clothes, and diets. Even people who seem unconcerned with pleasing others relish being accepted (Carvallo & Gabriel, 2006). Exiled, imprisoned, or in solitary confinement, people ache for their own people and places. Rejected, we are at risk for depression (Nolan, Flynn, & Garber, 2003). Time passes more slowly and life seems less meaningful (Twenge, Catanese, & Baumeister, 2003). When queried three months after arriving on a large university campus, many international students, like some homesick domestic students, reported declining feelings of well-being (Cemalcilar & Falbo, 2008). For the jilted, the widowed, and the sojourner in a strange place, the loss of social bonds triggers pain, loneliness, or withdrawal. Losing a close relationship, adults feel jealous, lonely, distraught, or bereaved, as well as mindful of death and the fragility of life (Strachman & Schimel, 2006). After relocating, people—especially those with the strongest need to belong—typically feel homesick (Watt & Badger, 2009). Reminders of death in turn heighten our need to belong, to be with others, and to hold close those we love (Mikulincer, Florian, & Hirschberger, 2003; Wisman & Koole, 2003). The shocking death of a classmate, co-worker, or family member brings people together, their differences no longer mattering. We are indeed social animals. We need to belong. As with other motivations, we pursue belonging when we don’t have it and seek less when our needs are fulfilled (DeWall et al., 2009). And!when we do belong—when we feel supported by close, intimate relation- ships—we tend to be healthier and happier. Satisfy the need to belong in balance with two other human needs—to feel autonomy and competence—and the typical result is a deep  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 343 sense of well-being (Deci & Ryan, 2002; Milyavskaya et al., 2009; Sheldon & Niemiec, 2006). Happiness is feeling connected, free, and capable. Social psychologist Kipling Williams (2002, 2007, 2011) has explored what happens when our need to belong is thwarted by ostracism (acts of excluding or ignoring). Humans in all cultures, whether in schools, workplaces, or homes, use ostracism to regulate social behaviour. Some of us know what it is like to be shunned—to be avoided, met with averted eyes, or given the silent treatment. The silent treatment is “emotional abuse” and “a ter- rible, terrible weapon to use,” say those who have experienced it from a family member or co-worker. In experiments, people who are left out of a simple game of ball tossing feel deflated and stressed. Ostracism hurts, and the social pain is keenly felt—more than those who are not ostracized ever know (Nordgren, Banas, & MacDonald, 2011). Ostracism may be even worse than bullying: Bullying, though extremely negative, at least acknowl- edges someone’s existence and importance, whereas ostracism treats a person as though they don’t exist at all (Williams & Nida, 2009). In one study, children who were ostra- cized but not bullied felt worse than those who were bullied but not ostracized (Carpenter, 2012). If!only we better empathized with those rejected, there might be less tolerance of ostracism. Sometimes deflation turns nasty, as when people lash out at the very people whose acceptance they desire (Reijntjes et al., 2011) or engage in self-defeating behaviour. In!several experiments, students randomly assigned to be rejected by their peers (versus those who were accepted) became more likely to engage in self-defeating behaviours (such as procrastinating by reading magazines) and less able to regulate their behaviour (such as eating cookies [Baumeister et al., 2005; Twenge et al., 2002]). Apparently the stereotype of someone eating lots of ice cream after a breakup isn’t far off. Nor is the trope of the rejected person drowning their sorrows in alcohol: People who were socially rejected by those close to them subsequently drank more alcohol (Laws et al., 2017). Such overeating and alcohol use might result from a self-control breakdown: Ostra- cized people show deficits in brain mechanisms that inhibit unwanted behaviour (Otten & Jonas, 2013). Outside the laboratory, rejected children were, two years later, more likely to have self-regulation issues, such as not finishing tasks and not listening to directions (Stenseng et al., 2014). In lab experiments, socially rejected people also became more likely to disparage or blast unpleasant noise at someone who had insulted them, were less likely to help others, and were more likely to cheat and steal (Kouchaki & Wareham, 2015; Poon et al., 2013; Twenge et al., 2001, 2007). If a small laboratory experience of rejection could produce such aggression, noted the researchers, one wonders what aggres- sive and antisocial tendencies “might arise from a series of important rejections or chronic exclusion.” Williams and Steve Nida (2011) were surprised to discover that even “cyberostracism,” by faceless people whom one will never meet, takes a toll. Their experimental procedure was inspired by Williams’s experience at a park picnic. When a Frisbee landed near his feet, and Williams threw it back to two others, they then included him in the tossing for a while. When suddenly they stopped tossing the Frisbee his way, Williams was “amazed” at how hurt he felt by the ostracism (Storr, 2018).! Taking this experience into the laboratory, the researchers have had more than 5000 participants from dozens of countries play a Web-based game of throwing a ball with two others (actually, computer-generated fellow players). Those ostracized by the other players experienced poorer moods and became more likely to conform to others’ wrong judg- ments on a subsequent perceptual task. Exclusion, whether it’s cyberostracism or in the real world, hurts longest for anxious people (Zadro et al., 2006). It hurts more for younger than older adults (Hawkley et al., 2011). And it hurts no less when it comes from a group that the rest of society spurns—Australian Ku Klux Klan members, in one experiment 344 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS (Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2006). Exclusion even hurts when the rejection comes from a robot instead of a person (Nash et al., 2018). Cyberostracism can also occur when you feel ignored on social media. Wouter Wolf and his colleagues (2015)!created an experimental paradigm to test this type of ostracism online, having participants create a personal profile (“write a paragraph [to] introduce yourself to the group”) and then, in the ostracism condition, receiving a very low number of “likes.” Participants ostracized in this way reported just as much negative mood and lack of meaning as those excluded during the online ball-toss game. So the next time you feel hurt because you didn’t get many likes, realize you’re not the only one who sometimes feels that way. Williams and his colleagues (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000) found ostracism stress- ful even when each of them was ignored for an agreed-upon day by the unresponsive four others. Contrary to their expectations that this would be a laughter-filled role-playing game, the simulated ostracism disrupted work, interfered with pleasant social function- ing, and “caused temporary concern, anxiety, paranoia, and general fragility of spirit.” To thwart our deep need to belong is to unsettle our life. Evidence collected by Geoff MacDonald of the University of Toronto and his col- leagues suggests a convergence between social and physical pain (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Ostracized people exhibit heightened activity in a brain cortex area that also activates in response to physical pain. Ostracism’s social pain, much like physical pain, increases aggression (Riva, Wirth, & Williams, 2011). Hurt feelings are also embodied in a depressed heart rate (Moor, Crone, & van der Molen, 2010). Heartbreak makes one’s heart brake. Indeed, the pain of social rejection is so real that a pain-relieving Tylenol can reduce hurt feelings (DeWall et al., 2010b), as can sending a light electrical current to the brain region in which rejection is felt (Riva et al., 2012). Ostracism’s opposite— feeling love—activates brain reward systems. When looking at their beloved’s picture, deeply in love university students feel markedly less pain when immersing their hands in cold water (Younger et al., 2010). Ostracism is a real pain. And love is a natural painkiller. Asked to recall a time when they were socially excluded—perhaps left alone in the dorm when others went out—University of Toronto students in one experiment even per- ceived the room temperature as five degrees colder than did those asked to recall a social acceptance experience (Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008). Such recollections come easily: Peo- ple remember and relive past social pain more easily than past physical pain (Chen et al., 2008). The effect moves the other way as well: Students who were ordered to ostracize others were just as distressed as those who were ostracized (Legate et al., 2013) and felt less human (Bastian et al., 2012). Roy Baumeister (2005) finds a silver lining in the rejection research. When recently excluded people experience a safe opportunity to make a new friend, they “seem will- ing and even eager to take it.” They become more attentive to smiling, accepting faces (DeWall, Maner, & Rouby, 2009). An exclusion experience also triggers increased mim- icry of others’ behaviour as a nonconscious effort to build rapport (Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin, 2008). And, at a societal level, notes Baumeister (2005), meeting the need to belong should pay dividends: My colleagues in sociology have pointed out that minority groups who feel excluded show many of the same patterns that our laboratory manipulations elicit: high rates of aggression and antisocial behaviour, decreased willing- ness to cooperate and obey rules, poorer intellectual performance, more self- destructive acts, short-term focus, and the like. If we could promote a more inclusive society in which more people feel themselves accepted as valued members, some of these tragic patterns might be reduced.  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 345 What Leads to Friendship and Attraction? What factors nurture liking and loving? How do proximity, physical attractiveness, similarity, and feeling liked nurture liking and loving? What predisposes one person to like, or to love, another? Few questions about human nature arouse greater interest. The ways affections flourish and fade form the stuff and fluff of soap operas, popular music, novels, and much of our everyday conversation. So much has been written about liking and loving that almost every conceivable explanation—and its opposite—has already been proposed. For most people—and for you—what factors nurture liking and loving?! Does absence make the heart grow fonder, or is someone who is out of sight also out of mind?! “I cannot tell how my ankles Do likes attract? Or opposites?! bend, nor whence the cause of my How much do good looks matter?! faintest wish, nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause What has fostered your close relationships?! of the friendship I take again.” Let’s start with those factors that lead to friendship and then consider Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 1855 those that sustain and deepen a relationship. Proximity One powerful predictor of whether any two people are friends is sheer proximity. Proximity can also breed hostility; most assaults and murders proximity Geographical nearness. involve people living close to each other. But, far more often, proximity Proximity (more precisely, prompts liking. Mitja Back and his colleagues (2008) confirmed this by “functional distance”) powerfully predicts liking. randomly assigning students to seats at their first class meeting and then having each make a brief self-introduction to the whole class. One year after this one-time seating assignment, students reported greater friendship with those who just happened, during that first class, to be seated next to or “I do not believe that friends are near them. In baseball, umpires are less likely to call a strike on batters they necessarily the people you like have stood closer to throughout the game (Mills, 2014). best, they are merely the people Though it may seem trivial to those pondering the mysterious origins of who got there first.” romantic love, sociologists long ago found that most people marry some- Sir Peter Ustinov, Dear Me, 1979 one who lives in the same neighbourhood, or works at the same company or job, or sits in the same class (Bossard, 1932; Burr, 1973; Clarke, 1952; Katz & Hill, 1958). In a survey of people married or in long-term relation- ships, 38 percent met at work or at school; some of the rest met when their paths crossed in their neighbourhood, church, or gym, or while growing up (Pew Research Center, 2007). Look around. If you marry, it will likely be to someone who has lived or worked or studied within walking distance. Interaction Even more significant than geographical distance is “functional distance”—how often peo- ple’s paths cross. We frequently become friends with those who use the same entrances, parking lots, and recreation areas. Randomly assigned university roommates, who can hardly avoid frequent interaction, are far more likely to become good friends than enemies (Newcomb, 1961). At the university where one of us teaches, the men and women once lived on opposite sides of the campus. They understandably bemoaned the lack of cross- sex friendships. Now that they occupy different areas of the same dormitories and share common sidewalks, lounges, and laundry facilities, friendships between men and women 346 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS are far more frequent. Interaction enables people to explore their similarities, to sense one another’s liking, and to perceive themselves as a social unit (Arkin & Burger, 1980). In one study, strangers liked each other more the longer they talked (Reis et al., 2010). So if you’re new in town and want to make friends, try to get an apartment near the mailboxes, an office desk near the coffee pot, a parking spot near the main buildings, or a room in a dormitory with shared bathroom facilities (Easterbrook & Vignoles, 2015). Such is the architecture of friendship. The chance nature of such contacts helps explain a surprising finding. Consider this: If!you had an identical twin who became engaged to someone, wouldn’t you (being in so many ways similar to your twin) expect to share your twin’s attraction to that person? But no, reported researchers David Lykken and Auke Tellegen (1993); only half of identical twins recalled really liking their twin’s selection, and only 5 percent said, “I could have fallen for my twin’s fiancé(e).” Romantic love is often rather like ducklings’ imprinting, in which ducklings bond to whomever is near, surmised Lykken and Tellegen. With repeated exposure to someone, our infatuation may fix on almost anyone who has roughly similar characteristics and who reciprocates our affection.! Why does proximity breed liking? One factor is availability; obviously there are fewer opportunities to get to know someone who attends a different school or lives in another town. But there is more to it than that. Most people like their roommates, or those one door away, better than those two doors away. Those just a few doors away, or even a floor below, hardly live at an inconvenient distance. Moreover, those close by are potential enemies as well as friends. So why does proximity encourage affection more often than animosity? Anticipation of interaction Proximity enables people to discover commonalities and exchange rewards. But merely anticipating interaction also boosts liking. John Darley and Ellen Berscheid (1967) dis- covered this when they gave women ambiguous information about two other women, one of whom they expected to talk with intimately. Asked how much they liked each one, the women preferred the person they expected to meet. Expecting to date someone similarly boosts liking (Berscheid et al., 1976). Even voters on the losing side of an election will find their opinions of the winning candidate—whom they are now stuck with—rising (Gilbert et al., 1995). The phenomenon is adaptive. Anticipatory liking—expecting that someone will be pleasant and compatible—increases the chance of a rewarding relationship (Klein & Kunda, 1992; Knight & Vallacher, 1981; Miller & Marks, 1982). It’s a good thing that we are biased to like those we often see, for our lives are filled with relationships with people whom we may not have chosen but with whom we need to have continuing interactions— roommates, siblings, grandparents, teachers, classmates, co-workers. Liking such people is surely conducive to better relationships with them, which in turn makes for happier, more productive living. Mere exposure Proximity leads to liking not only because it enables interaction and anticipatory liking but also for another reason: More than 200 experiments revealed that, contrary to an old proverb, familiarity does not breed contempt. Rather, it fosters fondness (Bornstein, 1989, 1999). Simply being repeatedly exposed to all sorts of novel stimuli—nonsense syllables, Chinese calligraphy characters, musical selections, faces—boosts people’s ratings of them; this phenomenon is called the mere-exposure effect. Do mere-exposure effect The tendency the “words”! nansoma, saricik, and afworbu mean something better or for novel stimuli to be liked more or something worse than the words iktitaf, biwojni, and kadirga?!Told these rated more positively after the rater words were Turkish (they are not), students tested by Robert Zajonc (1968, has been repeatedly exposed to them. 1970) preferred whichever of these words they had seen most frequently. The more times they had seen a meaningless word or a Chinese ideograph,  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 347 the more likely they were to say it meant something good. This can make for a good class demonstration. Periodically flash certain nonsense words on a screen. By the end of the semester, students will rate those “words” more positively than other nonsense words they have never before seen. When hurricanes do significant damage—and thus the hurricane name is mentioned frequently—babies are more likely to receive names starting with that letter, presumably due to mere exposure (Berger et al., 2012).! Attitudes toward social groups can also be changed by mere exposure: When people read stories about transgender individuals accompanied by pictures, they become more comfortable and less afraid of transgender people (Flores et al., 2018). Or consider this: What are your favourite letters of the alphabet? People of differing nationalities, languages, and ages prefer the letters appearing in their own names and those that frequently appear in their own languages (Hoorens, 1990, 1993; Kitayama & Karasawa, 1997; Nuttin, 1987). French students rate capital W, the least frequent letter in French, as their least favourite letter. In a stock market simulation study, business students preferred to buy stocks that shared the same first letter as their name (Knewtson & Sias, 2010). Japanese students prefer not only letters from their names but also numbers cor- responding to their birth dates. Consumers prefer products whose prices remind them of their birthdates ($49.15 for a birthday on the fifteenth) and their names (55 dollars for a name starting with F). The preference persists even when the price is higher (Coulter & Grewal, 2014). The mere-exposure effect violates the common-sense prediction of boredom— decreased interest—regarding repeatedly heard music or tasted foods (Kahneman & Snell, 1992). When completed in 1889, the Eiffel Tower in Paris was mocked as grotesque (Har- rison, 1977). Today, it is the beloved symbol of Paris. Familiarity usually doesn’t breed contempt; it increases liking. However, there is such a thing as too much exposure—if repetitions are incessant, liking eventually drops (Montoya et al., 2017). Music provides a vivid example: You may grow to like a popular song as you hear it more often, but there eventually comes a point—ugh— when you’ve heard it too much. “Even the best song becomes tiresome if heard too often,” says a Korean proverb.! So, do visitors to the Louvre in Paris really adore the Mona Lisa for the artistry it displays, or are they simply delighted to find a familiar face? It might be both: To know her is to like her. Eddie Harmon-Jones and John Allen (2001) explored this phenomenon Feeling close to those close by: People often become attached to, and sometimes fall in love with, those with whom they share activities. Source: ©Isaac Koval/Getty Images. 348 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS experimentally. When they showed people a woman’s face, their cheek (smiling) mus- cle typically became more active with repeated viewings. Mere exposure breeds pleasant feelings. Mere-exposure effects are even stronger when people receive stimuli without awareness (Hansen & Wänke, 2009; Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980; Moreland & Zajonc, 1977; Wil- son, 1978; Willems et al., 2010). In one experiment, women heard music in one headphone and words in the other; they were asked to repeat the words out loud, focusing attention toward the words and away from the tunes. Later, when the women heard the tunes inter- spersed among similar ones not previously played, they did not recognize them. Neverthe- less, they liked best the tunes they had previously heard. Even patients with amnesia—who can consciously recall very little of what they have experienced—prefer faces they saw recently (Marin-Garcia et al., 2013). Note that conscious judgments about the stimuli in these experiments provided fewer clues to what people had heard or seen than did their instant feelings. You can probably recall immediately liking or disliking something or someone without consciously know- ing why. Zajonc (1980) argued that emotions are often more instantaneous than thinking. Zajonc’s rather astonishing idea—that emotions are semi-independent of thinking (“affect may precede cognition”)—has found support in recent brain research. Emotion and cogni- tion are enabled by distinct brain regions. Lesion a monkey’s amygdala (the emotion-related brain structure) and its emotional responses will be impaired, but its cognitive functions will be intact. Lesion its hippocampus (a memory-related structure) and its cognition will be impaired, but its emotional responses remain intact (Zola-Morgan et al., 1991). The mere-exposure effect has “enormous adaptive significance,” noted Zajonc (1998). It is a “hard-wired” phenomenon that predisposes our attractions and attach- ments and that helped our ancestors categorize things and people as either familiar and safe or unfamiliar and possibly dangerous. The more two strangers interact, the more attractive they tend to find each other (Reis et al., 2010). The mere-exposure effect colours our evaluations of others: We like familiar people (Swap, 1977), and perceive them as happy (Carr et al., 2017) and more trustworthy (Sofer et al., 2015). “If it’s famil- iar, it has not eaten you yet,” Zajonc used to say (Bennett, 2010). It works the other way around, too: People we like (for example, smiling rather than unsmiling strangers) seem more familiar (Garcia-Marques et al., 2015). Mere exposure’s negative side, as we will note in Chapter 11, is our wariness of the unfamiliar—which may explain the automatic, unconscious prejudice people often feel when confronting those who are different. Infants as young as three months old exhibit an own-race preference: If they are typically surrounded by others of the same race in their environments, then they prefer to gaze at faces of their own familiar race (Bar-Haim et al., 2006; Kelly et al., 2005, 2007). We even like ourselves better when we are the way we’re used to seeing ourselves. In a delightful experiment, researchers showed women pictures of themselves and their mir- ror images. Asked which picture they liked better, most preferred the mirror image—the image they were used to seeing in the mirror. (No wonder our photographs never look quite right.) When close friends of the subjects were shown the same two pictures, they pre- ferred the true picture—the image they were used to seeing (Mita et al., 1977). Now that we see our own selfies so frequently, do you think the results would be different? Advertisers and politicians exploit this phenomenon. When people have no strong feelings about a product or a candidate, repetition alone can increase sales or votes (McCullough & Ostrom, 1974; Winter, 1973). After endless repetition of a commercial, shoppers often have an unthinking, automatic, favourable response to the product. Students who saw pop-up ads for brand-name products on web pages had a more positive attitude toward the brand, even when they didn’t remember seeing the ads (Courbet et al., 2014). If candidates are relatively unknown, those with the most media exposure usually win (Pat- terson, 1980; Schaffner, Wandersman, & Stang, 1981). Political strategists who understand  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 349 the mere-exposure effect have replaced reasoned argument with brief ads that hammer home a candidate’s name and a sound-bite message. Physical Attractiveness What do (or did) you look for in a potential date? Sincerity? Character? Humour? Good looks? Sophisticated, intelligent people are unconcerned “We should look to the with such superficial qualities as good looks; they know that “beauty is mind, and not to the outward only skin deep” and that “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” At least appearances.” they know that’s how they ought to feel. As Cicero counselled, “Resist Aesop, Fables appearance.” The belief that looks are unimportant may be another instance of how we deny real influences on us, for there is now a filing cabinet full of research studies showing that appearance does matter. The consistency and pervasiveness of this effect is astonishing. Good looks are a great asset. Attractiveness and dating Like it or not, a young woman’s physical attractiveness is a moderately good predictor of how frequently she dates, and a young man’s attractiveness is a modestly good predictor of how frequently he dates (Berscheid et al., 1971; Krebs & Adinolfi, 1975; Reis et al., 1982; Reis, Nezlek, & Wheeler, 1980; Walster et al., 1966). However, women more than men say they would prefer a mate who’s homely and warm over one who’s attractive and cold (Fletcher et al., 2004). In a worldwide BBC Internet survey of nearly 220!000 people, men more than women ranked attractiveness as important in a mate, while women more than men assigned importance to honesty, humour, kindness, and dependability (Lippa, 2007). In a longitudinal study following heterosexual married couples over four years, the wife’s physical attractiveness predicted the husband’s marital satisfaction better than the hus- band’s physical attractiveness predicted the wife’s satisfaction. In other words, attractive wives led to happier husbands, but attractive husbands had less effect on wives’ happiness (Meltzer et al., 2014). Gay men and lesbian women display these sex differences as well, with gay and straight men both valuing appearance more than lesbian or straight women do (Ha et al., 2012). Do such self-reports imply, as many have surmised, that women are better at following Cicero’s advice? Or that nothing has changed since 1930, when the English philosopher Attractiveness and dating: For online daters, looks are part of what is offered and sought. Source: ©Wavebreak Media Ltd/123RF. 350 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS Bertrand Russell (1930, p. 139) wrote, “On the whole women tend to love “Personal beauty is a greater men for their character while men tend to love women for their appear- recommendation than any letter ance.” Or does it merely reflect the fact that men more often do the invit- of introduction.” ing? If women were to indicate their preferences among various men, Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius would looks be as important to them as looks are to men? In one classic study, Elaine Hatfield and her co-workers (1966) matched 752 first-year students for a “Welcome Week” matching dance. The researchers gave each student personality and aptitude tests but then matched the hetero- sexual couples randomly. On the night of the dance, the couples danced and talked for two- and-a-half hours and then evaluated their dates. How well did the personality and aptitude tests predict attraction? Did people like someone better who was high in self-esteem, or low in anxiety, or different from themselves in outgoingness? The researchers examined a long list of possibilities. But as far as they could determine, only one thing mattered: how physically attractive the person was (as previously rated by the researchers). The more attractive a woman was, the more he liked her and wanted to date her again. And the more attractive the man was, the more she liked him and wanted to date him again. Pretty pleases. More recent studies have gathered data from speed-dating evenings, during which people interact with a succession of potential dates for only a few minutes each and later indicate which ones they would like to see again (mutual “yeses” are given contact informa- tion). The procedure is rooted in research showing that we can form durable impressions of others based on seconds-long “thin slices” of their social behaviour (Ambady, Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000). In speed-dating research, men (vs. women) thought they would care more about a potential date’s physical attractiveness; but when it came time to decide whom to date, a prospect’s attractiveness was similarly important to both men and women (Eastwick & Finkel, 2008). A recent meta-analysis (statistical digest) of 97 studies found that men and women placed about the same, fairly high, importance on physical attractiveness and about the same, lower, importance on earning prospects (Eastwick et al., 2014). As you saw earlier, other studies have found otherwise. Thus, whether men value physical attractiveness more than women is debated, but the overall importance of physical attractiveness in dating is fairly large—especially when dates stem from first impressions. However, once people have gotten to know each other over months or years through jobs or friendships, they focus more on each person’s unique qualities rather than their physical attractive- ness and status. In several studies examining liking over time among friends, the more time that went by, the more the friends diverged over who was most attractive as a mate. Among 167 couples, those who knew each other for longer and were friends before they dated were less similar in physical attractiveness than those who had known each other a shorter time and were not friends before they dated (Hunt et al., 2015). In a 2012 survey, 43 percent of women and 33 percent of men said they had fallen in love with someone they were not initially attracted to (Fisher & Garcia, 2013). In other words, there’s someone for everyone—once you get to know them (Eastwick & Hunt, 2014). Pretty pleases, but perhaps only for a time. Looks even influence voting, or so it seems from a study by Alexander Todorov and colleagues (2005). They showed university students photographs of the two major candidates in 695 political elections. Based on looks alone, the students (who preferred competent-looking over more baby-faced candidates) correctly guessed the winners of 67! percent of the elections. Follow-up studies have confirmed the finding that voters prefer competent-looking candidates (Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009; Chiao et al., 2008). But gender also mattered: Men were more likely to vote for physically attractive female candidates, and women were more likely to vote for approachable-looking male candidates. Likewise, heterosexual people display a positive bias toward attractive job candidates and university applicants—if they are of the other sex (Agthe, Spörrle, & Maner, 2011).  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 351 Physical appearance matters less among couples who were friends before they started dating. Source: ©Cathy Yeulet/123RF. The matching phenomenon Not everyone can end up paired with someone stunningly attractive. So how do people pair off? Judging from research by Bernard Murstein (1986) and others, they get real. They pair off with people who are about as attractive “If you would marry wisely, as they are. Several studies have found a strong correspondence between marry your equal.” the attractiveness of husbands and wives, of dating partners, and even of Ovid, 43 BC–17 AD those within particular fraternities (Feingold, 1988; Montoya, 2008). Peo- ple tend to select as friends and especially to marry those who are a “good match” not only to their level of intelligence, popularity, and self-worth but also to their level of attractiveness (McClintock, 2014; Taylor et al., 2011). Experiments confirm this matching phenomenon. When choosing whom to approach, knowing that the other is free to say yes or no, people matching phenomenon The tendency usually approach and invest more in pursuing someone whose attractive- for men and women to choose as ness roughly matches their own (Berscheid et al., 1971; van Straaten et al., partners those who are a “good match” 2009). They seek out someone who seems desirable, but they are mindful in attractiveness and other traits. of the limits of their own desirability. Good physical matches may also be conducive to good relationships, reported Gregory White (1980) from a study of dating couples. Those who were most similar in physical attractiveness were most likely, nine months later, to have fallen more deeply in love. When couples are instead dissimilar in attractiveness, they are more likely to consider leaving the relationship for someone else (Davies & Shackelford, 2017). Perhaps this research prompts you to think of happy couples who differ in perceived “hotness.” In such cases, the less attractive person often has compensating qualities. Each partner brings assets to the social marketplace, and the value of the respective assets cre- ates an equitable match. Personal advertisements and self-presentations to online dating services exhibit this exchange of assets (Cicerello & Sheehan, 1995; Hitsch, Hortacsu, & Ariely, 2006; Koestner & Wheeler, 1988). Men typically offer wealth or status and seek youth and attractiveness; women more often do the reverse: “Attractive, bright woman, 26, slender, seeks warm, professional male.” Men who advertise their income and educa- tion, and women who advertise their youth and looks, receive more responses to their ads (Baize & Schroeder, 1995). The asset-matching process helps explain why beautiful young women often marry older men of higher social status (Elder, 1969). The richer the man, the younger and more beautiful the woman. 352 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS The physical-attractiveness stereotype Does the attractiveness effect spring entirely from sexual attrac- tiveness? Clearly not, as researchers discovered when they used a makeup artist to give an accomplice a scarred, bruised, or birth- marked face. Glasgow train commuters of both sexes avoided sit- ting next to an apparently facially disfigured accomplice (Houston & Bull, 1994). In one experiment, two groups of observers were asked to surmise people’s traits based on their photographs. Those seeing photos of facially disfigured people judged them as less intelligent, emotionally stable, and trustworthy than did those see- ing photos of those same people after plastic surgery (Jamrozik et al., 2019). Moreover, much as adults are biased toward attrac- tive adults, young children are biased toward attractive children (Dion, 1973; Dion & Berscheid, 1974; Langlois et al., 2000). Judging from how long they gaze at someone, even three-month- old infants prefer attractive faces (Langlois et al., 1987). Adults show a similar bias when judging children. Grade 5 teachers were given identical information about a boy or girl but with the photograph of an attractive or unattractive child attached. The teachers perceived the attractive child as more intelligent and successful in school (Clifford & Walster, 1973). Imagine being a playground supervisor having to discipline an unruly child. Might you, like the women studied by Karen Dion Asset matching: High-status Rolling Stones guitarist (1972), show less warmth and tact to an unattractive child? The Keith Richards has been married to supermodel Patti Hansen, 19 years his junior, since 1983. sad truth is that most of us assume that homely children are less Source: ©s_bukley/Shutterstock. able and socially competent than their beautiful peers. What is more, we assume that beautiful people possess certain desirable traits. Other things being equal, we guess that beautiful “Love is often nothing but a people are happier; sexually warmer; and more outgoing, intelligent, and favourable exchange between successful—although not more honest (Eagly et al., 1991; Feingold, 1992; two people who get the most Jackson, Hunter, & Hodge, 1995). In one study, students judged attrac- of what they can expect, tive women as more agreeable, open, outgoing, ambitious, and emotionally considering their value on the stable (Segal-Caspi et al., 2012). We are more eager to bond with attrac- personality market.” tive people, which motivates our projecting desirable attributes, such as kindness and reciprocal interest, onto them (Lemay, Clark, & Greenberg, Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, 1955 2010). When attractive CEOs of companies appear on television, the stock prices of their companies rise—but being quoted in the newspaper, without a photo, has no effect (Halford & Hsu, 2014). physical-attractiveness Added together, the findings define a physical-attractiveness stereo- stereotype The presumption that type: What is beautiful is good. Children learn the stereotype quite early— physically attractive people possess and one of the ways they learn it is through stories told to them by adults. other socially desirable traits as well: “Disney movies promote the stereotype that what is beautiful is good,” What is beautiful is good. report Doris Bazzini and colleagues (2010) from an analysis of human characters in 21 animated films. Snow White and Cinderella are beautiful— and kind. The witch and the stepsisters are ugly—and wicked. “If you want to be loved by somebody who isn’t already in your family, it doesn’t hurt to be beautiful,” surmised one eight-year-old girl. Or as one kindergarten girl put it when asked what it means to be pretty, “It’s like to be a princess. Everybody loves you” (Dion, 1979). If physical attractiveness is that important, then permanently changing people’s attrac- tiveness should change the way others react to them. But is it ethical to alter someone’s looks? Such manipulations are performed millions of times a year by plastic surgeons and  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 353 orthodontists. With teeth and nose straightened, hair dyed, face lifted, fat liposuctioned, and breasts enlarged, lifted, or reduced, most self-dissatisfied people do express satisfac- tion with the results of their procedures, though some unhappy patients seek out repeat procedures (Honigman, Phillips, & Castle, 2004). To examine the effect of such alterations, Michael Kalick (1977) had stu- dents rate their impressions of eight women based on profile photographs “Even virtue is fairer in a fair taken before or after cosmetic surgery. Not only did they judge the women body.” as more physically attractive after the surgery but also as kinder, more Virgil, Aeneid, BC 1st Century sensitive, more sexually warm and responsive, more likeable, and so on. First impressions To say that attractiveness is important, other things being equal, is not to say that physical appearance always outranks other qualities. Some people more than others judge people by their looks (Livingston, 2001). Moreover, attractiveness most affects first impressions. But first impressions are important—and are becoming more so as societies become increas- ingly mobile and urbanized and as contacts with people become more fleeting (Berscheid, 1981). Your Facebook self-presentation starts with your face. In speed-dating experiments, the attractiveness effect is strongest when people’s choices are superficially made—when meeting lots of people quickly (Lenton & Francesconi, 2010). That helps explain why attractiveness better predicts happiness and social connections for those in urban rather than rural settings (Plaut, Adams, & Anderson, 2009). Though interviewers may deny it, attractiveness and grooming affect first impressions in job interviews—especially when the evaluator is of another sex (Agthe et al., 2011; Cash & Janda, 1984; Mack & Rainey, 1990; Marvelle & Green, 1980). People rate new products more favourably when they are associated with attractive inventors (Baron, Mark- man, & Bollinger, 2006). Such impressions help explain why attractive people and tall people have more prestigious jobs and make more money (Engemann & Owyang, 2003; Persico, Postelwaite, & Silverman, 2004). Patricia Roszell and her colleagues (1990) looked at the incomes of a national sample of Canadians whom interviewers had rated on a 1 (homely) to 5 (strikingly attractive) scale. They found that for each additional scale unit of rated attractiveness, people earned, on average, an additional $1988 annually. Irene Hanson Frieze and her associates (1991) did the same analysis with 737 MBA graduates after rating them on a similar 1-to-5 scale using student yearbook photos. For each additional scale unit of rated attractiveness, men earned an added $2600 and women earned an additional $2150. In Beauty Pays, economist Daniel Hamermesh (2011) argues that, for a man, good looks have the earnings effect of another year-and-a-half of schooling. The speed with which first impressions form, and their influence on thinking, helps explain why good-looking people prosper. Even an exposure as brief as 0.013 seconds— too brief to actually discern a face—is enough to enable people to guess a face’s attrac- tiveness (Olson & Marchuetz, 2005). Moreover, when categorizing subsequent words as either good or bad, an attractive face predisposes people to categorize good words faster. Attractiveness is perceived promptly and primes positive processing. Is the “beautiful is good” stereotype accurate? Do beautiful people, indeed, have desirable traits? For centuries, those who consid- ered themselves serious scientists thought so when they sought to identify physical traits (shifty eyes, a weak chin) that would predict criminal behaviour. Despite others’ perceptions, physically attractive people do not differ from others in basic personality traits, such as agreeableness, openness, extroversion, ambition, or emotional stability (Segal-Caspi et al., 2012). However, there is some truth to the stereotype. Attractive children and young adults are somewhat more relaxed, outgoing, and socially polished (Feingold, 1992; Langlois et al., 2000).! 354 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS THE INSIDE STORY I vividly remember the afternoon I began to appreciate the far-reaching implications of physical attractiveness. Graduate student Karen Dion (now a professor at the University of Toronto) learned that some researchers at our Institute of Child Development had collected popularity ratings from nursery school chil- dren and taken a photo of each child. Although teachers and caregivers of children had per- suaded us that “all children are beautiful” and no physical-attractiveness discriminations could be made, Dion suggested we instruct some people to rate each child’s looks and correlate Source: ©andresr/E+/Getty Images. these with popularity. After doing so, we real- assumed, with a host of implications that investi- ized our long shot had hit home: Attractive chil- gators are still tracing. dren were popular children. Indeed, the effect was far more potent than we and others had Ellen Berscheid, University of Minnesota In one study, 60 men called and talked for five minutes with each of three women stu- dents. Afterwards, the men and women rated the most attractive of their unseen telephone partners as somewhat more socially skillful and likeable. The same is true online: Even when they hadn’t seen the men’s photos, women rated the text of attractive men’s dating website profiles as more desirable and confident. What is beautiful is good, even online (Brand et al., 2012). Physically attractive individuals also tend to be more popular, more outgoing, and more gender-typed—more traditionally masculine, if male; more tradition- ally feminine, if female (Langlois et al., 1996). These small average differences between attractive and unattractive people probably result from self-fulfilling prophecies. Attractive people are valued and favoured and so may develop more social self-confidence. (Recall from Chapter 3 an experiment in which men evoked a warm response from unseen women they thought were attractive.) By that analy- sis, what’s crucial to your social skill is not how you look but how people treat you and how you feel about yourself—whether you accept yourself, like yourself, feel comfortable with yourself. Who is attractive? We have described attractiveness as if it were an objective quality, such as height, that some people have more of, and some less. Strictly speaking, attractiveness is whatever the people of any given place and time find attractive. This, of course, varies. The beauty standards by which Miss Universe is judged hardly apply to the whole planet. People in various places and times have pierced noses, lengthened necks, dyed hair, whitened teeth, painted skin,! gorged themselves to become voluptuous, starved themselves to become thin, and bound themselves with leather garments to make their breasts seem small—or used silicone and padded bras to make them seem big. For cultures with scarce resources and for poor or hungry people, plumpness is considered attractive; for cultures and indi- viduals with abundant resources, beauty more often equals slimness (Nelson & Mor- rison, 2005). Moreover, attractiveness influences life outcomes less in cultures where relationships are based more on kinship or social arrangement than on personal choice (Anderson et al., 2008). Despite such variations, there remains “strong agreement both  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 355 !FIGURE 10"1!!WHO’S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL? Each year’s selection of Miss Germany provides one country’s answer. A University of Regensburg student research team, working with a German television channel, offered an alternative. Christof Braun and his compatriots (Gruendl, 2005) photographed the 2002 “Queen of Beauty” finalists, without makeup and with hair tied back, and then created a “Virtual Miss Germany” that was the blended composite of all 22 of them (right). When adults in a local shopping mall were shown the finalists and the Virtual Miss Germany, they easily rated Virtual Miss Germany as the most attractive of them all. Although the winning real Miss Germany (left) may have been disappointed by the news that everyone preferred her virtual competitor to herself, she can reassure herself that she will never meet her virtual competitor. Source: (left): ©Oliver Bodmer/Action Press/ZUMAPRESS.com; (right): ©Dr. Martin Gruendl. within and across cultures about who is and who is not attractive,” note Judith Langlois and colleagues (2000). To be really attractive is, ironically, to be perfectly average (Rhodes, 2006). Researchers have digitized multiple faces and averaged them using a computer. Inevitably, people find the composite faces more appealing than almost all of the actual faces (Langlois & Rogg- man, 1990; Langlois et al., 1994; Perrett, 2010) (Figure 10–1). Across 27 nations, even an average leg-length-to-body ratio looks more attractive than very short or long legs (Soro- kowski et al., 2011). With both humans and animals, averaged looks best embody proto- types (for your typical man, woman, dog, or whatever) and, thus, are easy for the brain to process and categorize, noted Jamin Halberstadt (2006). Let’s!face it: Perfectly average is easy on the eyes (and brain). Computer-averaged faces also tend to be perfectly symmetrical—another characteristic of strikingly attractive (and reproductively successful) people (W. M. Brown et al., 2008; Gangestad & Thornhill, 1997). If you could merge either half of your face with its mir- ror image—thus forming a perfectly symmetrical new face—you would boost your looks (Penton-Voak et al., 2001; Rhodes et al., 1999). With a few facial features excepted (Said & Todorov, 2011), averaging a number of such attractive, symmetrical faces produces an even better-looking face. 356 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS Standards of beauty differ from culture to culture. Yet some people are considered attractive throughout most of the world. Source: (top left): ©2009 Jupiterimages Corporation;"(top right): ©John Lund/Getty Images; (bottom left): Courtesy of Catherine Karnow; (bottom right): ©Marc Romanelli/ Getty Images. Evolution and attraction Psychologists working from the evolutionary perspective explain the human preference for attractive partners in terms of reproductive strategy. They assume that beauty signals biologically important information: health, youth, and fertility. And so it does. Men with attractive faces have higher-quality sperm. Women with hourglass figures have more regular menstrual cycles and are more fertile (Gallup et al., 2008). Over time, men who preferred fertile-looking women out-reproduced those who were as happy to mate with post-menopausal females. That, David Buss (1989) believed, explains why the males he studied in 37 cultures—from Australia to Zambia—did, indeed, prefer youthful female characteristics that signify reproductive capacity. Evolutionary psychologists also assume that evolution predisposes women to favour male traits that signify an ability to provide and protect resources. In screening potential mates, reported Norman Li and his follow researchers (2002), men require a modicum of physical attractiveness, women require status and resources, and both welcome kindness and intelligence. Women’s emphasis on men’s physical attractiveness may also depend on their goals: Those focused on short-term relationships prefer symmetrical and thus attractive men, whereas those focused on the long term find this less important, perhaps because physical attractiveness may come with more negative qualities, such as infidelity (Quist et al., 2012).  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 357 Evolutionary psychologists have also explored men’s and wom- en’s responses to other cues to reproductive success. Men every- where are most attracted to women whose waists are 30 percent narrower than their hips—a shape associated with peak sexual fertility (Singh, 1993, 1995; Singh & Randall, 2007; Streeter & McBurney, 2003; Zotto & Pegna, 2017). Circumstances that reduce a woman’s fertility—malnutrition, pregnancy, menopause— also change her shape. When judging males as potential marriage partners, women, too, prefer a male waist-to-hip ratio suggesting health and vigour. They rate muscular men as sexier, and muscular men do feel sexier and report more lifetime sex partners (Frederick & Hasel- ton, 2007). This makes evolutionary sense, noted Jared Diamond (1996): A muscular hunk was more likely than a scrawny fellow to gather food, build houses, and defeat rivals. But today, women prefer men with high incomes even more (Muggleton & Fincher, 2017; Singh, 1995). During ovulation, women show increased accuracy in judging male sexual orientation, finds Nicholas Rule of the University of Toronto and his colleagues (2011). And they show increased wari- ness of out-group men (McDonald et al., 2011). One study found that, when ovulating, young women tend to wear and prefer more revealing outfits than when infertile (Durante et al., 2008). In another study, ovulating lap dancers averaged $70 in tips per hour— Evolutionary psychology theorizes that strong double the $35 of those who were menstruating (Miller et al., 2007). men would have been more likely to survive and reproduce over the course of human history, We are, evolutionary psychologists suggest, driven by primal explaining women’s preference for muscular men. attractions. Like eating and breathing, attraction and mating are Source: ©dash/123RF. too important to leave to the whims of culture. Social comparison Although our mating psychology has wisdom, attraction is not all hard-wired. What’s attractive to you also depends on your comparison standards. To men who have recently been gazing at centrefolds, average women and even their own wives seem less attractive (Kenrick, Gutierres, & Goldberg, 1989). Viewing porno- graphic films simulating passionate sex similarly decreases satisfaction with the viewer’s own partner (Zillmann, 1989b). Being sexually aroused may temporarily make a person of the other sex seem more attractive. But the lingering effect of exposure to!“perfect 10s,” or of unrealistic sexual depictions, is to make a person’s own partner seem less appealing. It works the same way with our self-perceptions. After viewing a very attractive person of the same gender, people rate themselves as being less attractive than after viewing a homely person (J. D. Brown et al., 1992; Thorn- “Love is only a dirty trick played ton & Maurice, 1997). Men’s self-rated desirability is also deflated by expo- on us to achieve a continuation sure to more dominant, successful men. Thanks to modern media, we may see of the species.” in an hour “dozens of individuals who are more attractive and more successful Novelist W. Somerset Maugham than any of our ancestors would have seen in a year, or even a lifetime,” noted (1874–1965) Sara Gutierres and her co-researchers (1999). Moreover, we often see slim, wrinkle-free, photoshopped people who don’t exist. Such extraordinary com- parison standards trick us into devaluing our potential mates and ourselves and spending bil- lions and billions of dollars on cosmetics, diet aids, and plastic surgery. But even after another 17 million annual cosmetic procedures, there may be no net gain in human satisfaction. If others get their teeth straightened, capped, and whitened, and you don’t, the social comparison may leave you more dissatisfied with your normal, natural teeth than you would have been if you were surrounded by peers whose teeth were also natural. 358 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS The attractiveness of those we love “Do I love you because you are Let’s conclude our discussion of attractiveness on an upbeat note. First, a beautiful, or are you beautiful 17-year-old girl’s facial attractiveness is a surprisingly weak predictor of because I love you?” her attractiveness at ages 30 and 50. Sometimes, an average-looking ado- Prince Charming, in Rodgers and lescent becomes a quite attractive middle-aged adult (Zebrowitz, Collins, Hammerstein’s Cinderella & Dutta, 1998; Zebrowitz, Olson, & Hoffman, 1993). Second, not only do we perceive attractive people as likeable, but we also perceive likeable people as attractive. Perhaps you can recall individu- als who, as you grew to like them, became more attractive. Their physical imperfections were no longer so noticeable. Alan Gross and Christine Crofton (1977) had students view someone’s photograph after reading a favourable or unfavourable description of the per- son’s personality. Those portrayed as warm, helpful, and considerate also looked more attractive. It may be true, then, that “handsome is as handsome does” and that “what is good is beautiful.” Discovering someone’s similarities to us also makes the person seem more attractive (Beaman & Klentz, 1983; Klentz et al., 1987). Moreover, love sees loveliness: The more in love a woman is with a man, the more physically attractive she finds him (Price et al., 1974). And “Can two walk together except the more in love people are, the less attractive they find all others of the they be agreed?” opposite sex (Johnson & Rusbult, 1989; Simpson, Gangestad, & Lerma, Amos 3:3 1990). Research by John Lydon of McGill University and his colleagues (1999) finds that this is especially true for people in more committed rela- tionships. They had people in relationships rate an attractive, “single and not currently involved” member of the opposite sex who was apparently also a participant in the study. This attractive person was supposedly matched with them randomly (a moderate threat to their relationship) or because he or she thought the partici- pant was attractive (a more serious threat). As you can see in Figure 10–2, when people Related attractiveness and relationship commitment 0.2 0 Rated attractiveness of other –0.2 –0.4 –0.6 –0.8 Moderate threat High threat –1 Low Moderate High Relationship commitment !FIGURE 10"2!!RELATED ATTRACTIVENESS AND RELATIONSHIP COMMITMENT. When an attractive member of the opposite sex threatens people’s relationships, they rate this person as less attractive if the threat posed by the person matches their level of commitment."  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 359 were threatened at the same level as they were committed, they saw the competition as less attractive. It seems that people modulate how attractive they find others in a way that maintains their close relationships. Beauty really is, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder. Similarity Versus Complementarity From our discussion so far, one might surmise that Leo Tolstoy was entirely correct: “Love depends.!.!. on frequent meetings, and on the style in which the hair is done up, and on the colour and cut of the dress.” As people get to know one another, however, other factors influence whether acquaintance develops into friendship. Do birds of a feather flock together? Of this much we may be sure: Birds that flock together are of a feather. Friends, engaged couples, and spouses are far more likely than people randomly paired to share common attitudes, beliefs, and values. Furthermore, the greater the similarity between husband and wife, the happier they are and the less likely they are to divorce (Byrne, 1971; Caspi & Herbener, 1990). Dating couples with more similar political and religious attitudes were more likely to still be together after 11 months (Bleske-Recheck et al., 2009). Such cor- relational findings are intriguing. But cause and effect remain an enigma. Does similarity lead to liking? Or does liking lead to similarity? Likeness begets liking To discern cause and effect, we experiment. Imagine that at a campus party Lakesha gets involved in a long discussion of politics, religion, and personal likes and dislikes with Les and Lon. She and Les discover they agree on almost everything; she and Lon, on few things. Afterwards, she reflects, “Les is really intelligent.!.!. and so likeable. I hope we meet again.” In experiments, Donn Byrne (1971) and his colleagues captured the essence of Lakesha’s experience. Over and over again, they found that the more similar someone’s attitudes are to your own, the more you will like the person.! Recent studies have replicated these effects, finding that students like others with similar attitudes (Montoya & Horton, 2012; Reid et al., 2013). Facebook friends and fraternity co-members tend to share facial similarities (Hehman, Flake, & Freeman, 2018). Likeness produces liking not only for college students but also for children and the elderly, for people of various occupations, and for those in various cultures The likeness-leads-to-liking effect has been tested in real-life situations: Roommates and speed daters. At two of Hong Kong’s universities, Royce Lee and Michael Bond (1996) found that roommate friendships flourished over a six-month period when roommates shared values and personality traits but more so when they perceived their roommates as similar. Perceived similarity also mattered more than actual similarity during speed dating (Tidwell et al., 2013). As so often happens, reality matters, but perception matters more. Strangers. In various settings, researchers at Wilfrid Laurier University found that people entering a room of strangers sit closer to those like themselves (Mackinnon, Jordan, & Wilson, 2011). People with glasses sit closer to others with glasses. Long- haired people sit closer to people with long hair. Dark-haired people sit closer to people with dark hair (even after controlling for race and sex). Babies. Eleven-month-old infants were more likely to choose a stuffed animal that pretended to eat the same food or wore the same colour mittens that they did. This suggests that the preference for similar others develops very early, even before babies can talk (Mahajan & Wynn, 2012). 360 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS Mimicry as behavioural similarity. People like not only those who think as they do but also those who act as they do. Subtle mimicry fosters fondness. Have you noticed that when people nod their head as you do and echo your thoughts, you feel a cer- tain rapport and liking? That’s a common experience, reported Rick van Baaren and his colleagues (van Baaren, Holland, Karremans, et al., 2003; van Baaren, Holland, Steenaert, et al., 2003), and one result is higher tips for Dutch restaurant servers who mimic their customers by merely repeating their order. Natural mimicry increases rapport, noted Jessica Lakin and Tanya Chartrand (2003), and desire for rapport increases mimicry. Throughout different cultures. In cultures as diverse as those in China, Israel, and California, similar attitudes, traits, and values help bring couples together and predict their satisfaction (Chen et al., 2009; Gaunt, 2006; Gonzaga, Campos, & Bradbury, 2007).! So similarity breeds content. Birds of a feather do flock together. Surely “And they are friends who have you have noticed this upon discovering a person who shares your ideas, come to regard the same things values, and desires—a special someone who likes the same foods, the same as good and the same things as activities, the same music you do. (When liking the same music as another, evil, they who are friends of people infer similar values as well [Boer et al., 2011].) the same people, and they who The principle that similarity attracts is a key selling point for online are the enemies of the same dating sites such as Chemistry.com! and eHarmony.com that match users people..!.!. We like those who with similar others via secret formulas. With that in mind, Samantha Joel resemble us, and are engaged in of Western University and her co-authors (2017) gave college students an the same pursuits.” exhaustive battery of 100 personality and attitude questionnaires and fed Aristotle, Rhetoric, BC 4th Century the results into a sophisticated computer program. However, the program couldn’t predict who would like each other after they actually met during a series of four-minute speed dates. So why do so many people not only use online dating sites but find long-term partners on them? Probably because the sites expand your pool of potential dates (Finkel et al., 2012). What happens afterward is much more unpredictable.! Dissimilarity breeds dislike We have a bias—the false consensus bias—toward assuming that others share our atti- tudes. We also tend to see those we like as being like us (Castelli et al., 2009). Getting to know someone—and discovering that the person is actually dissimilar—tends to decrease liking (Norton, Frost, & Ariely, 2007). If those dissimilar attitudes pertain to our strong moral convictions, we dislike and distance ourselves from them all the more (Skitka, Bau- man, & Mullen, 2004). People in one political party often are not so much fond of fellow party members as they are disdainful of the opposition (Hoyle, 1993; Rosenbaum, 1986).! In general, dissimilar attitudes depress liking more than similar attitudes enhance it (Singh & Ho, 2000; Singh & Teoh, 1999). Within their own groups, where they expect similarity, people find it especially hard to like someone with dissimilar views (Chen & Kenrick, 2002). That perhaps explains why dating partners and roommates become more similar over time in their emotional responses to events and in their attitudes (C. Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Davis & Rusbult, 2001). “Attitude alignment” helps promote and sustain close relationships, a phenomenon that can lead partners to overestimate their attitude similarities (Kenny & Acitelli, 2001; Murray, Holmes, et al., 2002). Whether people perceive those of another race as similar or dissimilar influences their racial attitudes. Wherever one group of people regards another as “other”—as creatures who speak differently, live differently, and think differently—the potential for conflict is high. In fact, except for intimate relationships, such as dating, the perception of like minds seems more important for attraction than like skins. In one study, liberals expressed dislike of conservatives and conservatives of liberals, but race did not affect liking (Chambers  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 361 et al., 2012). Likewise, the more that Montreal residents perceived a Canadian ethnic group as similar to themselves, the more willing they were to associate with its members (Osbeck, Moghaddam, & Perreault, 1996). “Cultural racism” persists, argued social psychologist James Jones (1988, 2003, 2004), because cultural differences are a fact of life. Black culture tends to be present-oriented, spontaneously expressive, spiritual, and emotionally driven. White culture tends to be more future-oriented, materialistic, and achievement-driven. Rather than trying to eliminate such differences, suggested Jones, we might better appreciate what they “contribute to the cultural fabric of a multicultural society.” There are situations in which expressiveness is advanta- geous and situations in which future orientation is advantageous. Each culture has much to learn from the other. In places such as Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, where migration and different birthrates make for growing diversity, educating people to respect and enjoy those who differ is a major challenge. Given increasing cultural diversity and given our natural wariness of differences, this may, in fact, be the major social challenge of our time. Do opposites attract? Are we not also attracted to people who in some ways differ from ourselves? We are physi- cally attracted to people whose scent suggests dissimilar enough genes to prevent inbreeding (Garver-Apgar et al., 2006). But what about attitudes and behavioural traits? Research- ers have explored this question by comparing not only friends’ and spouses’ attitudes and beliefs but also their age, religion, race, smoking behaviour, economic level, education, height, intelligence, and appearance. In all these ways and more, similarity still prevails (Buss, 1985; Kandel, 1978). Among 410 Grade!7 students, those who were similar in popu- larity, aggressiveness, and academic performance were more likely to still be friends a year later (Hartl et al., 2015). Smart birds flock together. So do rich birds, Protestant birds, tall birds, and pretty birds. Still we resist: Are we not attracted to people whose needs and personalities comple- ment our own? Would a sadist and a masochist find true love? Even the Reader’s Digest has told us that “opposites attract..!.!. Socializers pair with loners, novelty-lovers with those who dislike change, free spenders with scrimpers, risk-takers with the very cautious” (Jacoby, 1986). Sociologist Robert Winch (1958) reasoned that the needs of someone who is outgoing and domineering would naturally complement those of someone who is shy and submissive. The logic seems compelling, and most of us can think of couples who view their differences as complementary: “My husband and I are perfect for each other. I’m Aquarius—a decisive person. He’s Libra—can’t make decisions. But he’s always happy to go along with arrangements I make.” Given the idea’s persuasiveness, the inability of researchers to confirm it is astonishing. For example, most people feel attracted to expressive, outgoing people (Friedman, Rig- gio, & Casella, 1988). Would this be especially so when one is down in the dumps? Do depressed people seek those whose gaiety will cheer them up? To the contrary, it is nonde- pressed people who most prefer the company of happy people (Locke & Horowitz, 1990; Rosenblatt & Greenberg, 1988, 1991; Wenzlaff & Prohaska, 1989). When you’re feeling blue, someone else’s bubbly personality can be aggravating. The contrast effect that makes average people feel homely in the company of beautiful people also makes sad people more conscious of their misery in the company of cheerful people. Some complementarity may evolve as a relationship progresses (even a relationship between identical twins). Yet people seem slightly more prone to like and to marry those whose needs and personalities are similar (Botwin, Buss, complementarity The popularly & Shackelford, 1997; Buss, 1984; Fishbein & Thelen, 1981a, 1981b; Nias, supposed tendency, in a relationship 1979). Perhaps we shall yet discover some ways in which differences com- between two people, for each to monly breed liking. Dominance/submissiveness may be one such way complete what is missing in the other. (Dryer & Horowitz, 1997). But, as a general rule, opposites do not attract. 362 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS Liking Those Who Like Us Liking is usually mutual. Proximity and attractiveness influence our initial attraction to some- one, and similarity influences longer-term attraction as well. If we have a deep need to belong and to feel liked and accepted, would we not also take a liking to those who like us? Are the best friendships mutual admiration societies? Indeed, one person’s liking for another does predict the other’s liking in return (Kenny & Nasby, 1980; Montoya & Insko, 2008). One common way to show interest in someone—asking them questions—is especially effective in increasing liking (Huang et al., 2017). But does one person’s liking another cause the other to return the appreciation? People’s reports of how they fell in love suggest this is true (Aron et al., 1989). Discovering that an appealing someone really likes you seems to awaken romantic feelings. Experiments con- firm it: Those told that certain others like or admire them usually feel a reciprocal affection (Berscheid & Walster, 1978). And all the better, one speed-dating experiment suggested, when someone likes you especially (Eastwick, Finkel, et al., 2007). A dash of uncertainty can also fuel desire. Thinking that someone probably likes you—but you aren’t sure— tends to increase your thinking about, and feeling attracted to, another (Whitechurch, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2011). And consider this finding: Students like another student who said “The average man is more eight positive things about them more than one who said seven posi- interested in a woman who is tive things and one negative thing (Berscheid & Walster, 1978). We are interested in him than he is in a sensitive to the slightest hint of criticism. Writer Larry L. King spoke woman with beautiful legs.” for many in noting, “I have discovered over the years that good reviews Actress Marlene Dietrich, The Quotable strangely fail to make the author feel as good as bad reviews make him Woman, 1800–1975, 1978 feel bad.” Whether we are judging ourselves or others, negative information car- ries more weight because, being less usual, it grabs more attention (Yzerbyt & Leyens, 1991). People’s votes are more influenced by their impressions of candidates’ weaknesses than by their impressions of strengths (Klein, 1991), a phenomenon that has not been lost on those who design negative campaigns. It’s a general rule of life: Bad is stronger than good (Baumeister et al., 2001). Our liking for those we perceive as liking us was recognized long ago. Observers from the ancient philosopher Hecato (“If you wish to be loved, love”) to Ralph Waldo Emer- son (“The only way to have a friend is to be one”) to Dale Carnegie (“Dole out praise lav- ishly”) anticipated the findings. What they did not anticipate was the precise conditions under which the principle works. Attribution As we’ve seen, flattery will get you some- where—but not everywhere. If praise clearly violates what we know is true—if someone says, “Your hair looks great,” when we haven’t washed it in days—we may lose respect for the flatterer and wonder whether the compli- ment springs from ulterior motives (Shrauger, 1975). Thus we often perceive criticism to be more sincere than praise (Coleman, Jussim, & Abraham, 1987). Laboratory experiments reveal something Source: ©Robert Mankoff. All rights reserved. Used with permission. we’ve noted in previous chapters: Our reactions depend on our attributions. Do we attribute the  CHAPTER 10!ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY: LIKING AND LOVING OTHERS 363 flattery to ingratiation—to a self-serving strategy? Is the person trying to get us to buy something, to acquiesce sexually, to do a favour? If so, both ingratiation The use of strategies, the flatterer and the praise lose appeal (Gordon, 1996; Jones, 1964). But if such as flattery, by which people there is no apparent ulterior motive, then we warmly receive both flattery seek to gain another’s favour. and flatterer. Some people embrace compliments more readily than others!do, how- ever. Denise Marigold of Renison University College and her colleagues found that people with low self-esteem focus narrowly on the literal meaning of compliments—to them, “You have a nice smile” means just that (Marigold, Holmes, & Ross, 2007). People with high self-esteem, in contrast, attribute more abstract significance to compliments—that their partner is attentive, and values and cares for them—and this makes them feel more secure in their relationships. It’s not that low-self-esteem people can’t derive the same benefit from compliments; they do if they are specifically directed to think about what compliments mean for their relationship. Everyone feels more secure and valued if they attribute compliments to caring and affection, but people with low self-esteem need more encouragement to do so. Self-esteem and attraction Elaine Hatfield (Walster, 1965) wondered if another’s approval is especially rewarding after we have been deprived of approval, much as eating is most powerfully rewarding after fasting. To test this idea, she gave some women either very favourable or very unfavour- able analyses of their personalities, affirming some and wounding others. Then she asked them to evaluate several people, including an attractive male confederate who just before the experiment had struck up a warm conversation with each woman and had asked each for a date. (Not one turned him down.) Which women do you suppose most liked the man? It was those whose self-esteem had been temporarily shattered and who were presumably hungry for social approval. This helps explain why people sometimes fall passionately in love on the rebound, after an ego-bruising rejection. Indeed, after a breakup, the prospect of someone new helps peo- ple get over their ex-partners (Spielmann, MacDonald, & Wilson, 2009). Unfortunately, people with low self-esteem tend to underestimate how much potential partners will like and accept them. Jessica Cameron of the University of Manitoba, Danu Stinson of the Uni- versity of Victoria, and their collaborators (2010) found that, even when partners behave in an equally friendly way, low-self-esteem individuals believe they will be less accepted than high-self-esteem individuals. These lower expectations of acceptance lead low-self-esteem individuals to behave in a less warm and friendly manner, which ultimately leads them to actually be less accepted by others (Stinson et al., 2009). Even in established relationships, low-self-esteem people underestimate how much their romantic partners value them. They also have less generous views of their partner and are, therefore, less happy with the relationship (Murray et al., 2000). If you feel down about yourself, you will likely feel pessimistic about your relationships. Feel good about your- self and you’re more likely to feel confident of your dating partner’s or spouse’s regard. Accordingly, when low-self-esteem people are focused on their own strengths, they feel more secure in their relationships (Murray et al., 2005). Gaining another’s esteem If approval that comes after disapproval is powerfully rewarding, then would we most like someone who liked us after initially disliking us? Or would we most like someone who liked us from the start (and, therefore, gave us more total approval)? Ray is in a small discussion class with his roommate’s cousin, Sophia. After the first week of classes, Ray learns via his “pipeline” that Sophia thinks him rather shallow. As the semester progresses, however, he learns that Sophia’s opinion of him is steadily rising; gradually, she comes to view him as bright, thoughtful, and charming. Would Ray like Sophia more if she had 364 PART 3!SOCIAL RELATIONS thought well of him from the beginning? If Ray is simply counting the number of approv- ing comments he receives, then the answer will be “yes”: He would like Sophia better had she consistently praised him. But if, after her initial disapproval, Sophia’s rewar