CHAPTER 11: ATTRACTION AND INTIMACY
 Enables people to explore their similarities, to
Need to belong – a motivation to bond with others in
relationships that provide ongoing, positive interactions
 Support from close & intimate relationships →
healthier and happier
 Need to belong + competence + autonomy =
deep sense of well-being
Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary – power of social
attachments
Ostracism – acts of excluding or ignoring
 Silent treatment = “emotional abuse” and “a
terrible, terrible weapon to use”
 Social exclusion research:
o Those who felt excluded are more likely
to engage in:
 Self-defeating behaviors
 Underperforming in aptitude
tests
 Less able to regulate behavior
 More likely to deliver a blast of
noise to someone who has
insulted them
o Researchers wonder what aggressive
tendencies might arise from a series of
important rejections or chronic
exclusions.
 Cyber ostracism by faceless people whom one
will never meet also affects people (e.g., seen sa
group chat)
 Ostracized people exhibit heightened activity in
a brain cortex area (anterior cingulate, right
ventral prefrontal) that also activates in
response to physical pain
 Ostracism’s social pain:
o ↑ aggression
o Depressed heart rate
o Tylenol (painkiller) can reduce hurt
feelings
 People remember and relive past social pain
more easily than past physical pain.
WHAT LEADS TO FRIENDSHIP AND ATTRACTION?
PROXIMITY
 Geographical nearness
 Functional distance – powerfully predicts liking
 In school setting, students reported greater
friendship with their seatmates.
Interaction
sense one another’s liking, and to perceive
themselves as part of a social unit
 Functional distance – how people’s paths cross
 Most people marry someone in the same
neighborhood, or works at the same company
or job, or sits in the same class, or visits the
same favorite place.
 With repeated interaction, infatuation may fix
on almost anyone who has similar
characteristics and who reciprocates our
affection
 Why does proximity breed liking?
o Availability
Anticipation of Interaction
 Proximity  discover commonality & exchange
rewards
 Anticipatory liking (expecting that someone will
be pleasant and compatible) increases the
chance of forming a rewarding relationship.
Mere Exposure Effect
 Tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or
rated more positively after the rate has been
repeatedly exposed to them
 Name letter effect – preferring letters from
their names from the rest of the alphabet; also
works for birthdates
 Violates the commonsense prediction of
boredom—decreased interest (e.g., repeatedly
heard music or tasted food)
 “To know her is to like her.” (e.g., Mona Lisa –
do people adore the artistry or are they simply
delighted to find a familiar face?)
 Exposure without awareness  liking
 Emotions are often more instantaneous than
thinking (intuitively liking or disliking something
or someone without knowing why)
o Emotions are semi-independent of
thinking
 Damaging amygdala won’t
affect cognition
 Damaging hippocampus won’t
impact affect
 Has adaptive significance—categorizing things
and people as familiar and safe or unfamiliar
and dangerous
 Negative side: wariness of the unfamiliar
explaining the automatic unconscious prejudice
 people often feel when confronting those who
are different (e.g., racism)
 We like ourselves better the way we’re used to
seeing ourselves.
o Among the actual picture and a mirror
image, participants preferred the mirror
image.
 When people have no strong feelings about a
product or a candidate, repetition alone can
increase sales or votes.
PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS
Attractiveness and Dating
 Physical attractiveness  moderately good
predictor of how frequently one dates
 Women prefer someone who’s homely and
warm over one who is attractive and cold.
 Men ranked attractiveness as important in a
mate.
 Women assigned importance to honesty,
humor, kindness, and dependability.
 Women worry more about their appearance
and constitute to cosmetic surgery patients.
 We can form durable impressions of others
based on seconds-long “thin slices” of their
social behavior.
Who is attractive?
The Matching Phenomenon
 The tendency for men and women to choose as
partners those who are a good match in
attractiveness and other traits
 Asset-matching – each partner brings assets to
the social marketplace, and the value of the
respective assets create an equitable match
o Men typically offer wealth or status and
seek youth and attractiveness (why
beautiful young women often marry
older men of higher social status).
o Positive self-image expected of
repeated exposure to one’s own face
and strategic self-presentation.
 Majority of men rated
themselves as having “above
average” or “very good” looks
The Physical Attractiveness Stereotype
 The presumption that physically attractive
people possess other socially desirable traits as
well (“What is beautiful is good”)
 Bart Simpson Effect – presumption that homely
children are less able and socially competent
than their beautiful peers
 Harvard students judged women who had
cosmetic surgery as more physically attractive,
kinder, more sensitive, more sexually warm and
responsive, more likeable, etc.
 First Impressions
o Attractiveness most affects first
impressions (e.g., interviews)
o Attractive people and tall people have
more prestigious jobs and make more
money.
o The speed with which first impressions
form, and their influence on thinking
helps explain why pretty prospers.
 Even a 0.013-second exposure
is enough to enable people to
guess a face’s attractiveness.
 Is the “beautiful is good” stereotype accurate?
o Attractive children and young adults 
valued and favored  more social self-
confidence  more relaxed, outgoing,
and socially polished
o Self-fulfilling prophecy – physically
attractive individuals tend also to be
more popular, more outgoing and more
gender typed
 Culture with scarce resources and for poor or
hungry people  plumpness is attractive
 Individuals with abundant resources  slimness
is attractive
 Attractiveness influences life outcomes less in
cultures where relationships are based more on
kinship or social arrangement than on personal
choice.
 To be really attractive  be perfectly average
o Average looks best embody prototypes
 easy for the brain to process and
categorize
 To be really attractive  face symmetry
 Evolution and attraction
o Human preference for attractive
partners in terms of reproductive
strategy (health, youth, fertility)
o Men – attractive faces have higher
quality sperm
o Women – hourglass figures have more
regular menstrual cycles and are more
fertile
o Evolution predisposes women to favor
male traits that signify an ability to
provide and protect resources
 o Men – prefer women whose waists are
30% narrower than their hips
o Women – prefer a male waist-to-hip
ratio suggesting health and vigor
o Women prefer women with higher
income.
o During ovulation, women show
heightened preference for men with
masculinized faces voices, and bodies
 Social Comparison
o What’s attractive to you also depends
on your comparison standards.
o Contrast effect – after viewing a super
attractive person of the same gender,
people rate themselves as being less
attractive than after viewing an
unattractive person.
 The Attractiveness of Those We Love
o A 17-year-old girl’s facial attractiveness
is a weak predictor of her attractiveness
at age 30 and 50
o Average-looking adolescent, especially
one with a warm, attractive personality,
become a quite attractive middle-aged
adult
o Not only do we perceive attractive
people as likable, but we also perceive
likable people as attractive.
o The more in love a woman is with a
man, the more physically attractive she
finds him.
SIMILARITY VS. COMPLEMENTARITY
Do birds of a feather flock together?
 Likeness begets liking.
o The more similar someone’s attitudes
are to your own, the more you will like
the person.
o Those individuals with high agreement
form close relationships.
o People entering a room of strangers sit
closer to those like themselves.
 Dissimilarity breeds dislike.
o Getting to know someone and
discovering that you are actually
dissimilar tend to decrease liking
o Attitude alignment – helps promote
and sustain close relationships, a
phenomenon that can also lead
partners to overestimate their attitude
similarities.
o Whenever one group regards another
as “other”, the potential for conflict is
high.
o Cultural racism persists because cultural
differences are a fact of life.
Do opposites attract?
 The needs of an outgoing and domineering
person would naturally complement those of
someone who is shy and submissive.
 However, contrast effect might take place and
cause negative feelings to occur (e.g., sad
people more conscious of their misery in the
company of cheerful people)
 Complementarity – the popularly supposed
tendency, in a relationship between two
people, for each to complete what is missing in
the other.
 Similarity is still preferred and in general,
opposites do not attract.
LIKING THOSE WHO LIKE US
 Discovering than an appealing someone likes
you awakens romantic feelings.
 Thinking that someone probably likes you—but
you aren’t sure—tends to increase your thinking
about, and feeling attracted to, another.
 Whether we are judging ourselves or others,
negative information carries more weight
because being less usual grabs more attention.
Attribution
 We often perceive criticism to be more sincere
than praise.
 Our reactions depend on our attribution.
 Ingratiation – the use of strategies, such as
flattery, by which people seek to gain another’s
favor.
o Recognizing that a flatterer has an
ulterior motive lose the appeal. But if
there is no apparent ulterior motive,
the flattery and flatterer are both
received warmly.
Self-Esteem and Attraction
 How we feel about ourselves determines how
we feel about our relationships-esteem
 Another’s approval is especially rewarding after
we have been deprived of approval (e.g.,
rebound)
Gaining Another’s Self-Esteem
 Constant approval can lose value.
  (-) -> (+) Overheard evaluations enhances liking
for the other
 An open and honest relationship is more likely
to offer continuing rewards than one dulled by
the suppression of unpleasant emotions (lavish
praise)
 Authenticity – our ability to give up trying to
make a good impression and begin to reveal
things about ourselves that are honest even if
unsavory.
RELATIONSHIP REWARDS
 Reward theory of attraction – the theory that
we like those whose behavior is rewarding to us
or whom we associate with rewarding events
 If a relationship gives us more rewards than
costs, we will like it and will wish it to continue.
 We not only like people who are rewarding to
be with but also those we associate with good
feelings.
 This helps us understand why people
everywhere feel attracted to those who are
warm, trustworthy, and responsive.
 The reward theory helps explain some of the
influences on attraction.
a. Proximity is rewarding.
b. We like attractive people because we
perceive that they offer other desirable
traits and because we benefit by associating
with them.
c. If others have similar opinions, we feel
rewarded because we presume that they
like us in return.
d. We like to be liked and love to be loved
(mutual liking).
WHAT IS LOVE?
PASSIONATE LOVE
 Robert Sternberg views love as a triangle
consisting of three components:
o Passion
o Intimacy
o Commitment
 Some elements of love are common to all loving
relationships: mutual understanding, giving and
receiving support, enjoying the loved one’s
company.
 Research indicates that mutual gaze conveys
liking and averted eye gaze conveys ostracism.
 Passionate love – a state of intense long for
reunion with another
 Passionate lovers are absorbed in each other,
feel ecstatic at attaining their partner’s love,
and are disconsolate on losing it.
A Theory of Passionate Love
 Two-factor theory of emotion - suggests that in
a romantic context, arousal from any source,
even painful experiences, can be steered into
passion
o Arousal X its label = passion
 Those who do exciting activities together report
the best relationships (e.g., scary movies, rides,
physical exercise)
 Passionate love is a biological and psychological
phenomenon.
o Engages dopamine-rich brain areas
(e.g., caudate nucleus) associated with
reward.
 Love is also a social phenomenon,
o Sexual desire + deepening friendship 
romantic love
o Passionate love = lust + attachment
Variations in Love: Culture and Gender
 For most cultures, love is a precondition for
marriage except those practicing arranged
marriage.
 Men tend to fall in love more readily.
 Men seem to fall out of love more slowly and
are less likely than women to break up a
premarital romance.
 Once in love, however, women are typically as
emotionally involved as their partners.
 Women are more likely to focus on the intimacy
of the friendship and on their concern for their
partner.
COMPANIONATE LOVE
 The affection we feel for those with whom our
lives are deeply intertwined.
  The passion-facilitating hormones
(testosterone, dopamine, adrenaline) subside,
while the hormone oxytocin supports feelings
of attachment and trust
 The flow and ebb of romantic love follows the
pattern of addictions to coffee, alcohol, and
other drugs.
o Drug gives a high  repetition 
opponent emotions gain strength 
tolerance  no longer gives thrill 
withdrawal symptoms (malaise,
depression, blahs)
 Feelings of love diminishes after a 5-year
newlywed period (opposite trend for arranged
marriages).
 The cooling of intense romantic love often
triggers a period of disillusion, especially among
those who believe that romantic love is
essential both for a marriage and for its
continuation.
 Asians are less prone to self-focused
individualism that in the long run can
undermine a relationship and lead to divorce.
 Passionate love  children
WHAT ENABLES CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS?
ATTACHMENT
 Injections of hormones such as oxytocin and
vasopressin produce good feelings that trigger
male–female bonding
o Genes associated with vasopressin
activity predict marital stability
 Our need to belong is adaptive
o Parents and children
o Friends
o Spouses or lovers
Attachment Styles
 Secure attachment (70%)
o Rooted in trust and marked by intimacy
o Finds it easy to get close to others and
don’t fret about getting too dependent
or abandoned
o Enjoy sexuality within relationship
o Relationships are satisfying and
enduring
 Avoidant attachment (20%)
o Marked by discomfort over, or resistant
to, being close to others
o More likely to engage in one-night
stands
o Fearful avoidant – “I am uncomfortable
getting close to others”
o Dismissing avoidant – “It is very
important to me to feel independent
and self-sufficient”
 Insecure attachment (10%)
o Clinging, then indifferent or hostile
o Marked by anxiety and ambivalence
o Less trusting, possessive and jealous
EQUITY
 A condition in which the outcomes people
receive from a relationship are proportional to
what they contribute to it
 Strangers and casual acquaintances maintain
equity by exchanging benefits.
Long-term Equity
 As people observe their partners being self-
giving, their sense of trust grows
o Perceived reciprocation is a non-issue
o No strings attached
 Marriage contracts would more
likely undermine than enhance
love.
Perceived Equity
 Faithfulness, happy sexual relationship, and
sharing household chores are the top three
marks of successful marriages.
 Perceived inequities trigger marital distress
which fosters the perception of inequities.
o The one who has the better deal may
feel guilty and the one who senses a
raw deal may feel strong irritation.
SELF-DISCLOSURE
 Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others
 People like those who disclose to them and they
also disclose to those whom they like.
 Disclosure reciprocity – tendency for one
person’s intimacy or self-disclosure to match
that of a conversational partner
 “Openers” – easily elicit intimate disclosures
from others, even from those who normally
don’t reveal very much of themselves
 “Growth-promoting listeners” genuine in
revealing their own feelings, who are accepting
of others’ feelings and who are empathetic,
sensitive, and reflective listeners
 People feel better on days when they have
something significant about themselves.
  Women > men in disclosure
 Essence of love—two selves connecting,
 disclosing, and identifying with each other; two
selves, each retaining their individuality, yet
sharing activities, delighting in similarities, and
mutually supporting—result to “self–other
integration” (intertwined self-concepts)

HOW DO RELATIONSHIPS END?

DIVORCE
 Individualists marry “for as long as we both shall
love,” collectivists more often for life.
 Individualistic cultures have more divorce than
do communal cultures.
 Enduring relationships are rooted in enduring
love and satisfaction, but also in fear of the
termination cost, a sense of moral obligation,
and inattention to possible alternative partners.
 People usually stay married if they
o married after age 20.
o both grew up in stable, two-parent
homes.
o dated for a long while before marriage.
o are well and similarly educated.
o enjoy a stable income from a good job.
o live in a small town or on a farm.
o did not cohabit or become pregnant
before marriage.
o are religiously committed.
o are of similar age, faith, and education.

THE DETACHMENT PROCESS

 Severing bonds  agitated preoccupation with
the lost partner  deep sadness  emotional
detachment, a letting go of the old while
focusing on someone new  renewed sense of
self

 Healthy marriages were not necessarily devoid

of conflict. Rather, they were marked by an
ability to reconcile differences and to
overbalance criticism with affection.
 Successful marriage = (positive > negative)
interactions