People are initially attracted to eachother for a number of reasons, and these reasons have been investigated by numerous psychologists. A number of factors have been found to have significant influence on finding a potential partner 'attractive'.
Proximity
It has been found through various studies that having close proximity to the potential partner significantly increases attractiveness.
Festinger (1950) studied college relationships in a halls of accomodation. He found that students who had become closer friends lived on the same floor as eachother. Those who lived next door to eachother were the closest, and the further away the other students room was the lower the relationship level.
Bossard (1932) investigated 5000 couples and their pre-marital addresses. Results showed that over half of the couples had previously lived within walking distance of eachother before meeting eachother. However, a cricticism of this study is that transportation has significantly increased since this study was carried out, and that people are more readily available to travel further distances to meet a friend/partner.
Zajonc also investigated the 'mere exposure effect'. He argued that the more we are exposed to someone, the more likely we are to like them. However, some criticise this argument, as sometimes the mere exposure effect could lead to the opposite - strongly dislking someone the more we see them.
In conclusion, the proximity argument seems to make sense. Of course being in close proximity to someone increases potential for relationships - it means we are more likely to meet that person, and more likely to see them on a regular basis.
Physical Attraction
It is often argued that first impressions count, and when we first meet someone we evaluate their level of attraction - even without realising it. Research by Dion(1972) found that we think of attractive people as being special, and that they are often rated more postivley such as friendly, warm, intelligent and funny. This is known as the halo effect.
Walster (1969) argues that we are attracted to people of a similar attractiveness to us. He called this the matching hypothesis.
Similarity
According to many psychologists, we are attracted to those who hold similar personalities and beliefs to us. Burgess & Wallin (1953) measured 42 personality traits, and found that tere were a significant within-couple similarity for many of these personality traits. According to Bryne et al (1968) we are attracted to people that also have a similar attitude and belief system. Research by Hill & Stull (1981) supports this, finding that female college students who had cosen to share a room had very similar values and attitudes. Similar demongraphics are also linked to increased attractiveness. We are attracted to people who are of the same age, social class and ethnic background.
Criticisms
Individual Differences - Not everyone finds the same sort of things attractive. Just because someone is similar to us, dosnt mean that we are going to like them. Infact, there is a lot fo research suggesting that it is possible to form relationships with people extremely different from us.
Novak and Lerner (1968) argue that we even prefer people who have different attitudes than ours.
There are many many examples of relationships that go outside the boundarys stated in the previous factors, suggesting that although these factors do seem to help, they are not 100% determintive. People have free choice and free will, and are complex individual creatures. Attractiveness is too complex of an emotion to be able to pinpoint on a definitive list.
Teaching Ideas
Proximity
It has been found through various studies that having close proximity to the potential partner significantly increases attractiveness.
Festinger (1950) studied college relationships in a halls of accomodation. He found that students who had become closer friends lived on the same floor as eachother. Those who lived next door to eachother were the closest, and the further away the other students room was the lower the relationship level.
Bossard (1932) investigated 5000 couples and their pre-marital addresses. Results showed that over half of the couples had previously lived within walking distance of eachother before meeting eachother. However, a cricticism of this study is that transportation has significantly increased since this study was carried out, and that people are more readily available to travel further distances to meet a friend/partner.
Zajonc also investigated the 'mere exposure effect'. He argued that the more we are exposed to someone, the more likely we are to like them. However, some criticise this argument, as sometimes the mere exposure effect could lead to the opposite - strongly dislking someone the more we see them.
In conclusion, the proximity argument seems to make sense. Of course being in close proximity to someone increases potential for relationships - it means we are more likely to meet that person, and more likely to see them on a regular basis.
Physical Attraction
It is often argued that first impressions count, and when we first meet someone we evaluate their level of attraction - even without realising it. Research by Dion(1972) found that we think of attractive people as being special, and that they are often rated more postivley such as friendly, warm, intelligent and funny. This is known as the halo effect.
Walster (1969) argues that we are attracted to people of a similar attractiveness to us. He called this the matching hypothesis.
Similarity
According to many psychologists, we are attracted to those who hold similar personalities and beliefs to us. Burgess & Wallin (1953) measured 42 personality traits, and found that tere were a significant within-couple similarity for many of these personality traits. According to Bryne et al (1968) we are attracted to people that also have a similar attitude and belief system. Research by Hill & Stull (1981) supports this, finding that female college students who had cosen to share a room had very similar values and attitudes. Similar demongraphics are also linked to increased attractiveness. We are attracted to people who are of the same age, social class and ethnic background.
Criticisms
Individual Differences - Not everyone finds the same sort of things attractive. Just because someone is similar to us, dosnt mean that we are going to like them. Infact, there is a lot fo research suggesting that it is possible to form relationships with people extremely different from us.
Novak and Lerner (1968) argue that we even prefer people who have different attitudes than ours.
There are many many examples of relationships that go outside the boundarys stated in the previous factors, suggesting that although these factors do seem to help, they are not 100% determintive. People have free choice and free will, and are complex individual creatures. Attractiveness is too complex of an emotion to be able to pinpoint on a definitive list.
Teaching Ideas
- Throughough powerpoint going through the different factors, including evaluations.
- Compose worksheet to work through - practice questions, tables to fill in etc. Keep in folders and can be later used as a revision tool.
- Group Task - Split into groups, give each group a factor to research and compose a large poster and presentation to present to the rest of the class. Reinforces information, makes them look deeper into the factor they are given. Is an active, involved and fun activity to reinforce the information previously given to them.
