L18 Attraction and Intimacy

• Selectivity

  • Women are more selective than men in finding partners.
  • Study: an attractive person approached an opposite-sex stranger on a college campus and asked either ‘Would you go out with me tonight?’ Or ‘Would you go to bed with me?’. Around half the men and women agreed to go out with the stranger, however none of the women agreed to go to bed with the person but 3/4 of the men did (Clark and Hatfield, 1989).
• Why are women more selective? 

  • Biological explanation: men produce billions of sperm whereas women only produce a small number of eggs, and birth has physical costs - parental investment theory.
• Why are women more selective? 

  Social norms: These can exaggerate, equalise or reverse the costs. For example, society often calls men ‘playboys’ and women ‘sluts’ which makes sex differentials expensive for men and women. 
• Studies show: men desire a higher number of sexual partners, men are more open to uncommitted sex, men are less selectiv . Women value good financial prospects more highly, women value ambition and industriousness more highly, they prefer older partners by 2-3 years.
• Proximity provides opportunity for attraction but also motivation. People work harder to like those who the expect to have social interactions with. 
• Mere exposure effect = the tendency for liking to increase with the frequency of exposure. People generally prefer familiar to novel stimuli, e.g we prefer mirror reversed images of ourselves but friends and family prefer normal images of us (Mita el al, 1977)
• • Similarity- we like people who are similar to us: a study shows engaged couples had high concordance rates on a characteristics survey than randomly put together couples. 
  • Study: evidence that similarity in warmth and dissimilarity in dominance are associated with relationship satisfaction (Markey & Markey, 2007).
• Social connection

  • Humans desire and need social connection
  • Behaviourist approach - social needs are due to positive reinforcement i.e. infants learn to love their parents because they provide food.
  • Biological - we have innate attachment mechanisms.
  • Harlow - monkeys seek out comforting physical contact.
  • Bowlby’s attachment theory: attachment between infant and parent is an evolved adaption.
• Attraction

  • Self monitoring - how much you care about how you present yourself to others. High self-monitors pay more attention to partner’s external attributes. Low self-monitors pay more attention to partner’s internal attributes.
  • Reciprocity - we tend to like those who like us.
• Types of love

  • Passionate love - an  experience involving feelings of euphoria, intimacy, and intense sexual attraction ( a few months to 2 years)
  • Companionate/ compassionate love - involves affection, trust and concern for the partner’s wellbeing (slower to develop, longer lasting)
• People who have idealistic perceptions of their partners are more satisfied with their relationships than those who have realistic perceptions. This is a relationship-maintenance mechanism, which may help people stay committed to their partner.
• Attachment styles in adults:

  • Secure, dismissing, preoccupied, fearful.