PSY BEH 118D Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Homophily, Physical Attractiveness
16 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Attraction, Love, and Communication
• attraction
o the girl next door
▪ among those who work in the same place or take the same class, we tend
to be more attracted to people with whom we have had some contact
several times than we are to people with whom we have had little contact
▪ this is the mere exposure effect: repeated exposure to any stimulus,
including a person, leads to greater liking for that stimulus
o birds of a feather
▪ similarity in age, race/ethnicity, SES
• homophily: contact with equal status
• educational attainment, type of institution
▪ similarity in attitudes and opinions
• people agreeing with us makes us feel right
• we anticipate positive interactions
▪ matching phenomenon
o cognitive processes of attraction
▪ Herbst et al. 2003 article
▪ similarity to actual and ideal self
▪ general attraction: cognitive + emotional
• emotional component = how you feel
• cognitive component = what you think
• these are independent
▪ we like people best when they are similar to, but not better than, our ideal
selves
o physical attractiveness
▪ we prefer physically attractive others
▪ men value an attractive partner more
▪ perception influenced by other factors
• intelligence, liking, and respect
o what about for us?
o analyze data
• our own objective attractiveness
o from the lab to real life
▪ attitude and personality questionnaire
• 22 couples similar, 22 couples different
• couples were sent on dates
• how close did they stand to each other?
o attraction online
▪ advantage: find similar people
▪ disadvantage: people may lie
▪ dating sites with a scientific approach
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
