Attraction.
When you first see someone attractive, some people are likely to go up to them and talk to them. Other look and keep it pushing. Few create personality traits based on how someone looks and the eye contact the two of you hold. For example, have you ever created scenarios in your head about encounters with your “crush” that will most likely never happen? Or, have you ever fell asleep to the idea of you and the person you find attractive talking or engaging in romantics. If yes, so have I.
When I was younger, I used to see an individual who I found attractive and envision how their personality could be based on little clips of how they act or their mannerisms. I would assume that they are all of the personality traits that I like in an individual and would try to see if I could find some type of similarity. An extremely embarrassing moment, is when I found out we both liked seafood and Twix, mentally, I thought he was perfect (again not my proudest moment). This is similar to when we have a favorite celebrity or youtuber especially. We take a 15-45 minute video and analyze it and assume we know how the person acts in “real-life”. It is especially worse if we have a “crush” on the celebrity or influencer.
The textbook describes this as the primacy effect and physical attraction stereotype. Primacy effect is the tendency to be influenced by information that is presented first, i.e. physical appearance, someone’s voice, or maybe someone’s scent (Gruman et al, 2017). The physical attraction stereotype is the thought that physically attractive people have more positive traits, while an unattractive person has negative qualities. Dion, Berscheid and Walster (1972) did a seminal study where they found that attractive people were better people based on their looks: sensitive, sexually responsive, interesting and sociable (Gruman et al., 2017).
While, it is okay to dream about someone you find physically attractive. One thing we need to watch out for is putting personality traits on people we have never met. The quote “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” really plays into effect because unknowingly you could build unreasonable expectations for a person. This is unfair because: (a) the person never told you to expect otherwise, (b) it puts unnecessary pressure on someone (c) you are more likely to be disappointed than not. The only way to determine a person’s qualities is to get to know them for an extended period of time and making assumptions can hinder that.
Reference
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE.
This is a great post! There is an extremely unrealistic expectation of celebrities and how we imagine them to act away from the camera. Because celebrities are what we consider to be conventionally attractive, they are also given a long list of positive attributes that may not even be 100% accurate. This falls into play with the physical attractive stereotype, as you have mentioned above.
Getting to know a person and learning about their qualities is a more accurate way of assessing if someone has truly positive attributes to them. I liked your statement about “not judging a book by its cover.” This is such a great saying! You shouldn’t define someone simply by their looks. This is why a lot of times you hear that “beauty comes from within.”
References:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE.
Hi,
I absolutely love this post! I completely understand what you mean by “creating scenarios in your head about encounters with your “crush” that will most likely never happen.” This is the story of my life! Everyone I know does this. I have had multiple conversations with my friends about how every night before they go to sleep, they create the perfect fake scenario about their crush/partner and go super deep into the details. This includes fake conversation, location, clothing, etc. It’s so entertaining and addictive to do. However, I do believe this can potentially have negative consequences. Since most of these scenarios are about a romantic partner that isn’t actually well-known, this crush has likely developed solely out of physical attraction. Due to this, the personality aspect of fake scenario is completely made up. As you mentioned, this can lead us to falsely create and attach a personality to someone that doesn’t exist in real life and thus could cause eventual disappointment.
In general, research on the physical attractiveness stereotype from a variety of research contexts suggests that attractiveness has effects upon several types of interpersonal evaluations. Beauty is seen as being associated with personal and social success, positive personality, teacher and parental expectations, socialization experiences, talent, sex appeal, and social desirability. Far from an undifferentiated monolithic phenomenon, physical attractiveness may also result in negative evaluations in some social situations, e.g., certain situations where success is differentially ascribed to attractive and unattractive individuals or when unattractive persons are evaluating attractive peers. But cumulatively this research provides rather strong evidence for a physical attractiveness stereotype that generalizes across differing samples, contexts, and settings which reflect varying life span stage experiences (Adams, 1977). There are so many complexities that come with having a relationship with someone which go far deeper than physical attractiveness and, as such, this should never be the only factor for liking someone.
References:
Adams, G. (1977). Physical Attractiveness Research: Toward a Developmental Social Psychology of Beauty. Human Development, 20(4), 217-239. Retrieved April 12, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/26764301