sam -sagar - attraction and close relationship

• determinants of facial attractiveness

  • preference in common
  • high uniformity in facial configurations (symmetry) of attractive faces
• cultural differences - no physical characteristic was considered attractive in all cultures
• facial attractiveness:

  • attractive individuals are judged more positively across a whole range of factors

  1. more likely to have dates
  2. babies gaze longer at attractive female faces
  3. rated as more adjusted
  4. perceived to be happier more successful
• determinants of women physical attractiveness

  men find 2 types of women attractive

  • childlike features: large eyes, small chin
  • mature features: big smile, prominent cheekbones

  both men and women prefer women with feminine facial features
• determinants of men facial attractiveness

  • large eyes set wide apart
  • small nose
  • prominent cheek bones
  • large chin
  • angular jaw

  more women preferred feminine-featured male faces, like leonardo dicaprio, then more masculine male faces, like arnold schwarzenegger
• determinants of men facial attractiveness:

  women associate different personality traits with different face shape

  masculine-faced men: perceived by women as: cold, dominant

  feminine-faced men: perceived by women as: warm, kind
• are beards attractive?

  • during the hairy 70s, undergrads raed bearded men as attractive
  • in 1991, undergrads rated clean shaven men as younger, more attractive, and more sociable than the bearded
  • in 2018 australian women rated men with full as more sexually attractive than clean shaven men; possibly indication of masculinity and high testosterone levels
• attractiveness: cultural factors:

  • cultural factors play a major role in perceptions of attractiveness and humans mate selection
  • also different times and eras
• evolutionary approach to attractiveness and mating

  • humans spend time and energy on mating and child-rearing
  • men and women have evolved conditional mating strategies guided by cues and signals
• evolutionary approach to attractiveness and mating

  • women prefer men with features that signal genetic benefits to offspring
  • for some men, short term mating might be successful. others might look for a single mate
  • it is these circumstances and cues that underpin the variations in short- and long-term mating strategies between the sexes
• cognitive-evolutionary approach to physical attractiveness::

  • evolutionary processes: favour women with a WHR of 0.7
  • cognitive processes are affected by cultural and ecological factors:
  • foraging societies: thin women - ill and weak
  • western societies : heavy women = ill
• cognitive-evolutionary approach to facial attractiveness

  evolutionary processes: favour attributes close to the population average

  cognitive processes: favour typical/ average faces
• facial symmetry and perceived health - rhodes et al

  • aim : to determine whether facial symmetry signals good health

  rationale: genetic and ecological stresses during development
• rhodes et al - facial symmetry and perceived health

  • perfect symmetric faces were rated as healthy
  • perceived health negatively correlated with distinctiveness
  • so, perfect symmetric faces signal good health, and distinctive faces (low averageness) signal unhealthy)
  • findings support the cognitive evolutionary assumption that symmetrical and average faces are attractive because they perceived as healthy
• cognitive-evolutionary approach to attraction _ average looking faces are attractive because they signify healthy individuals
• attraction factors:

  1. proximity
  2. familiarity
  3. reciprocal liking
  4. similarity
  5. physical attractiveness
• proximity

  • working, living nearby to others facilitates attraction through greater exposure
  • chatting with neighbours is an important form of social interaction and increases mutual liking, promotes willingness for cooperation
• proximity increases interpersonal liking

  • 3 experimental studies on proximity and men's judgements of women
  • results: men liked women who were near by
  • so physical distance between people shapes their relationship experience
  • findings support the general idea that proximity increases liking
  • the studies were conducted in korea. cultural differences?
• familiarity: mere exposure effect and attraction

  • the more exposure we have to someone; the more at easy we feel with them. this increases liking/attraction
  • more frequent exposure to faces of strangers increased liking them
• reciprocity liking

  reciprocity principle: a major determinant in attraction

  tendency to like people who like us, and dislike those who dislike us
• similarity: law of attraction - newcomb

  attitude similarity

  • students completed attitude questionnaires before arrived at uni
  • measured changes in attitudes between students and attitudes between students and and attitude change over one semester
  • findings: proximity and having similar attitude were important factors in determining ratings of attraction; complementarity
• similarity - law of attraction

  • linear relationship between attraction towards a person and proportion of similar attitudes shared with that person
• similarity: determinants of attraction - sprecher

  conducted 3 studies:

  1. male and female students randomly assigned to either same-sex or opposite sex friendship, or a romantic relationship
  2. asked them to think of someone with whom they had a close friendship/relationship
  3. asked them to select a person they were in the development stage of a close romantic relationship
• summary

  • cognitive-evolutionary approach to attraction
  • average looking faces are attractive because they are perceived as healthy individuals