PSYCH 424 blog

I am sure anyone reading this blog could make a list of people they know either in real life, celebrities they like, or people on social media, etc., of who they find attractive. But have you ever wondered what made you so attracted to them? Is it purely the way they look? Or is it more about their style or interests? Thinking deeper into why people are attracted to individuals, you would find that it is not completely surface level. It is more than just looks, although that is a big part of it, there is more than meets the eye. Attraction consists of three different aspects, the proximity effect, the familiarity effect, and physical appearance. 

In person, the initial driving force of attraction, when it comes to relationships, would be proximity. The proximity effect is “the tendency for physical and psychological nearness to increase interpersonal liking.” (Gruman, 2016, p.422). First signs of attraction occur when someone is simply in close quarters with another person, like in a classroom. They see that person, they hear how they talk, see how they interact with others, and overall get a good observation of who they are, while in close enough proximity. A study done by Back, Shmuckle, and Egloff showed the significance of proximity when they had classmates introduce themselves to each other in the beginning of the year and a year later asked them to rate their friendships with the students in the class. This resulted with the students rating the classmates who sat near them as closer friends than classmates who sat further from them in the classroom. 

Taking a step past proximity, the familiarity effect is another important element in attraction. The familiarity effect is the idea that “Increased exposure to someone generally enhances preexisting feelings toward that person, whether positive or negative.” (Zajonc, 1968, as cited in Gruman, 2016, pg. 423). The more you are around someone the more familiar you become. For example, if your schedule lines up with someone else’s and you see them at the same time everyday. You get familiar with the person, and the more familiar you are with someone, the more comfortable you are with that person. It has been shown that “Since the original research on familiarity and attraction in the 1960s, dozens of studies have tested this effect. Most studies have supported the claim that familiarity promotes attraction.” (e.g., Reis, Maniaci, Caprariello, Eastwick, and Finkel, 2011 as cited in Gruman, 2016, p. 423). In short, when someone is familiar with another person they are more likely to perceive them as attractive.

On to what is seemingly to be the most important component in attraction, physical appearance. There have been studies that resulted with the consensus that people value the quality of looks the most when finding a dating partner. Overall, it has been found that physical attractiveness does matter, however it is deeper than that. People perceived to be attractive have further expectations on them, “People associate good looks with other good things about the person. In a seminal study, Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) found that attractive people are expected, purely on the basis of their looks, to be better people: sensitive, sexually responsive, interesting and sociable.” (Gruman, 2016, p. 424). People find good looking people attractive because of their looks and also the belief that their good looks entail other good qualities. This assumption that people have for good looking people is an additional reason for their attraction to them. 

In all, people find others attractive because of proximity, familiarity, and physical appearance. People are likely to be attracted to someone who is physically close to them in proximity. A person is bound to find one person around them as attractive. The mere fact that they are around them makes them familiar to them and familiarity in itself promotes attraction. Physical appearance is the leading factor in most cases of attraction because they are pleasing to look at and good looking people are assumed to be elite. 

References

Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology : Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2023 at 9:19 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.