Last Updated on January 18, 2023 by Mike Robinson
What is Interpersonal Attraction?
Interpersonal attraction is the basis for most voluntary social relationships. To form friendships, we must first identify potential friends and then get to know them. Deciding whether you would like to get to know another person can happen quickly, sometimes within just minutes of meeting them. That may be because you don’t randomly choose people to encounter.
Finding Potential Friends
What initially attracts people to each other? “Birds of a feather flock together.” “Familiarity breeds contempt.” “Opposites attract.” Are these statements true? The folklore about friendship is, at best, a mixture of fact and fiction. As you might expect, we look for friends and lovers who will be kind and understanding and who appear to have attractive personalities. Let’s explore the surprising variety of factors influencing our initial attraction to people.
Proximity Attraction
In general, we are attracted to people we are familiar with. That’s one reason why actors who costar in movies together often become romantically involved. Our choice of friends is based more on physical proximity than we might care to believe.
Proximity promotes attraction by increasing the frequency of contact between people. You must have that initial contact with someone before developing an interpersonal attraction.
The closer people live to each other, the more likely they are to become friends. Likewise, lovers think they have found the “one and only” person in the universe for them. In reality, they have found the best match in a five-mile radius. Marriages are not made in heaven but in local schools, businesses, churches, bars, clubs, and neighborhoods.
In short, there does seem to be a “boy next door” or “girl next door” effect in romantic attraction and a “folks next door” effect in friendship. However, the Internet makes having constant virtual contact increasingly easier, leading to more long-distance friendships and romances.
Homogamy: The Power of Similarities
Take a moment to make a list of your closest friends. What do they have in common (other than the joy of knowing you)? Their ages are likely similar to yours, and you are the same sex and ethnicity. That is the power of homogamy.
There will be exceptions, of course. But the similarity between these three dimensions is the general rule for friendships.
Similarity refers to how alike you are to another person in your background, age, interests, attitudes, beliefs, and so forth. And everything from a casual acquaintance to marriage shows that similar people are attracted to each other.
And why not? It’s reinforcing to see our beliefs and attitudes shared by others. It shows we are right and reveals that they are clever people as well!
So, does similarity also influences mate selection? The answer is yes. When choosing a mate, data shows we often marry someone like us in almost every way. Studies show that married couples are usually similar in age, education, ethnicity, and religion.
To a lesser degree, they are also similar in attitudes and opinions, mental abilities, status, height, weight, and eye color. In case you’re wondering, homogamy also applies to unmarried couples living together. Homogamy is a good thing. The risk of divorce is highest among couples with sizable differences in age and education.
Physical Attractiveness
Physically attractive people are regarded as good-looking by others. Beautiful people are generally rated as more appealing than average. This is due, in part, to the “halo effect,” a tendency to generalize a favorable impression to unrelated personal characteristics.
Because of the halo effect, we assume that attractive people are likable, intelligent, warm, witty, mentally healthy, and socially skilled. Hollywood even portrays characters in movies more favorably when they are beautiful.
Being physically attractive can be an advantage for both males and females. Good-looking people are less lonely, less socially anxious, more popular, more socially skilled, and more sexually experienced than unattractive people.
Where romance is concerned, physical attractiveness influences a woman’s fate more than a man’s. For instance, a strong relationship exists between a woman’s physical beauty and her dating frequency. For men, looks are unrelated to dating frequency. When men and women first meet, beauty affects attractiveness more for women and personality more for men.
Do these findings seem shallow and sexist? If so, it may be reassuring to know that beauty is a factor mainly in initial acquaintance. Later, more meaningful qualities gain importance. As you discover that someone has a good personality, they will start looking more attractive. It takes more than appearances to make a lasting relationship.
Reciprocity- The Feeling’s Mutual
OK, so he or she is someone you are familiar with, appears to share a lot in common with you, and is physically attractive. Before taking it to the next level, what else do you need to know? Well, it would be nice to know if they are also the least interested in you.
Reciprocity, which occurs when people respond to each other in similar ways, could be the most important factor influencing the development of friendships. Most people find it easier to reciprocate someone else’s overtures than to be the initiator. That way, they can avoid the embarrassment of an outright rejection.
Getting to Know One Another
Once someone has made the initial contact, it’s time to get to know each other. This is mainly done through self-disclosure, as you begin to share private thoughts and feelings and reveal yourself to others. To get acquainted, you must be willing to talk about more than just the weather, sports, or nuclear physics.
As friends talk, they gradually deepen their trust and self-disclosure. We often reveal ourselves to people we like than those we find unattractive. Self-disclosure also requires a degree of trust. Many people play it safe with people they do not know well. Indeed, self-disclosure has unspoken rules about what’s acceptable.
Moderate self-disclosure leads to increased reciprocity (a return in kind).
In contrast, over-disclosure exceeds what is appropriate for a relationship or social situation, increasing suspicion and reducing attraction. For example, imagine standing in line at a store and having a stranger say, “Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I feel about myself. I think I’m pretty well adjusted, but I occasionally have questions about my sexual adequacy.” You would likely think this is not an appropriate conversation to have with a stranger.
When self-disclosure proceeds at a moderate pace, it builds trust, intimacy, reciprocity, and positive feelings. This tends to strengthen interpersonal attraction. When it is too rapid or inappropriate, we will likely back off and wonder about the person’s motives.
It’s interesting to see the current trend on the Internet, especially on social networking websites like Facebook. People often feel freer to express their true feelings, which can lead to genuine, face-to-face friendships. However, it can also lead to some very dramatic over-disclosure.
Is self-disclosure similar for men and women? Women and men display interesting differences and patterns of self-disclosure, as described below.
Gender Friendships and Interpersonal Attraction
Two male friends share lunch at a restaurant. In the next hour, they talk about sports, cars, sports cars, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, sports, cars, and golf. Janice, who was at a nearby table, overheard the entire conversation. Her summary of what the men said to each other is: “Absolutely nothing!”
In North American culture, most male friendships are activity based. That is, men tend to do things together, which is a pattern that provides companionship without closeness.
Women often base their friendships on shared feelings and confidence. If two female friends spent an afternoon together and did not reveal problems, private thoughts, and feelings to one another, they would assume something was wrong.
For women, friendship is a matter of discussing shared concerns and intimate matters. The difference between male and female friendships is smaller than implied here.
Men do know something about the private thoughts and feelings of their friends. Nevertheless, most contemporary men do not form close friendships with other men. Many could learn something from female friendships: men live their friendships side-by-side; women live them face-to-face.
Social Exchange Theory
Self-disclosure also affects interpersonal attraction. Self-disclosure involves an exchange of personal information, but other exchanges also occur. Many relationships consist of an ongoing series of social exchanges. Like transfers of attention, information, affection, favors, and the like between two people.
In many social exchanges, people try to maximize their rewards by minimizing their costs. When a friendship or love relationship ceases to be attractive, people often say, “I’m not getting anything out of it anymore.” Although they probably are, their costs have outweighed their rewards in terms of effort, irritation, or lowered self-esteem.
According to social exchange theory, we unconsciously waste social rewards and costs. For our relationship to last, it must be profitable (its rewards must exceed its costs) for both parties.
Social exchange theory example
Troy and Helen have been dating for two years. Although they still have fun, they also frequently argue and bicker. If the friction in the relationship gets much stronger, it will exceed the rewards of staying together. When that happens, they will split up.
The Comparison Level
Also, just being profitable is only part of the story. It is more accurate to say that a relationship needs to be profitable enough. Generally, we judge the balance between rewards and costs. We will establish expectations based on past experiences.
The personal standard a person uses to evaluate rewards and costs is called the comparison level. The comparison level is high for people with histories of satisfying and rewarding relationships. It is lower for someone whose relationships have been unsatisfying.
Thus, your personal comparison level affects your decision to continue our relationship. A lonely person, or one whose friendships have been marginal, might be in a relationship that you consider unacceptable.
Related article: Differential Socialization: A Complete Guide
