PSYC 362 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Social Penetration Theory, Sociosexual Orientation, Sexual Attraction

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 362
• Professor: Kim Bartholomew

Document Summary

What makes people attractive assumed that some people simply have better personality than others. Positive personality more attractive; negative personality less attractive. Pratfall effect: although we may admire people who possess wonderful qualities, we are even more attracted to people whose wonderful qualities are tempered by a few endearing flaws . Donn byrne"s study the procedure called phantom other technique: Finding: the more that people have in common with someone else, the more they find that person attractive. (cid:1955) this is probably because some personality traits are distinctly unattractive. When it comes to personality, it is complementarity, not similarity: far from being attracted to similar others, we are instead attracted to people who possess qualities we lack. Little evidence that we are attracted to people with opposite or different personality traits. Complementarity may still exist (e. g. one is extraverted, one is shy) But overall similar mate value. (e. g. both more extraverted compared to others)