How does the psychology of attraction work? What is it about you that makes someone like you? How do we decide whether we like someone and would like to have them as a friend? How do we know when we’ve met “the one?”
I know the day of love, Valentine’s Day, is behind us, but the psychology of attraction is all around us. By psychology of attraction, I’m referring to what draws us close to people in a friendly or romantic way. Making friends is a significant topic for some of you. Dale Carnegie’s book How to Make Friends and Influence People has been in print for over 75 years and is one of the best-selling books of all time, with over 30 million copies sold! A Google search of “self-help books on making friends” returns 31,400,000 results, and Carnegie’s book is at the top of the list.
Even my grandson, who was starting first grade at the time, was determined to have the best school year yet! He was going to do this by making friends. Desperately seeking my help, he asked me, “Grand D, how can I make friends?”, “I want people to like me and not think I’m weird.”
Being a self-proclaimed shy person and an introvert, socializing is not THAT important to me, but it’s something that society expects us to do, so I follow the rules and play along. Not to mention, this was my baby coming to me so I had to help him out. I gave him some solid advance. The old, be yourself speech. If people can’t accept you for who you are, you don’t need them! Etc. Etc. And sent him on his little 7-year old way.
How do we decide whether we like someone?
But then I started thinking, “What is it that makes us like someone?” What is it about ourselves that makes someone like us? Don’t tell me you’ve never pondered those questions. If you haven’t, I’m going to insist that you do so….now!
Take a few minutes to think about your relationships with at least two people…Are you thinking?
Who did you think about? Was it your best friend you’ve known since elementary school or junior high? Or was it a new person you just happened to meet while standing in line at the grocery store? Was it someone that you’ve been in a long-term romantic relationship with? Or was it someone you’ve got your eye on but haven’t been brave enough to speak up yet? What is it about your interactions with those people, or what thoughts come to mind when you think about what led to these special attachments? What psychological magic or chemistry binds you together?
According to social psychologists, deciding whether you like someone is not a snap decision. Remember elementary school and the notes with the checkboxes saying, “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” Apparently, it’s not that simple. Before you decide whether you like or maybe even love someone, there are many factors you consider.
Let’s take a look three kinds of attraction.
3 Kinds of Attraction
1. Situational Attraction – Situational attraction happens by way of physical proximity, opportunity, motivation, and familiarity. The tricky thing about familiarity is that it sometimes breeds contempt. What do I mean? Think about that song you heard on the radio, and when you first heard it, you were like, “WTH is this?” A few years ago, my situational attraction song was Rihanna’s Work. When I first heard it, I was like, mmmm mmmm! Next song, please!! The more I heard it, it grew on me, and before I knew it, it landed in my Spotify list as my top song listened to at the end of the year. Of course, the flip side to that is the contempt you develop for a song after you’ve heard it a million times, and you can’t stand to hear it again! I guess it’s true what they say. There really is a thin line between love and hate!
One of my favoritie examples of proximity if Barney’s Mermaid Theory as Explained to Marshall in this clip from How I Met Your Mother
Barney’s theory is that a man will become attracted to a woman simply by seeing her every day or spending time with her even if he does not initially find her attractive! That’s some compelling stuff. Wouldn’t you agree? The manatee eventually becomes a beautiful, magical, mystical mermaid.
It is unknown whether relationships based on proximity are successful or lasting, but proximity is a consistent predictor of liking someone. And…friendships based on proximity often find friends turning into lovers. My husband and I met at work. We worked in the same building. HE was the manatee!
2. Physical Attraction – Physical attractiveness is a powerful social cue and it’s the first quality that draws us to a person in most cases. Hundreds of scientific experiments reveal that physical attractiveness, more than anything else, tends to color our first impressions of people. Studies show that physical attractiveness is so potent that it influences how mothers treat their children. Even babies spend more time looking at attractive faces suggesting they prefer attractive to unattractive faces!
Attractiveness tends to be an all-inclusive thing! When you find someone attractive you often assume that EVERYTHING about them is great. That type of absolute thinking is referred to as the “That which is beautiful is good” stereotype. A stereotype that has been traced back to the Greek poet Sappho, around 2,600 years ago and contemporary psychologists remain interested in the phenomena.
Let’s face it, the face is an important social cue!
3. Psychological Attraction – So you connected with someone via proximity. You found someone you think is physically attractive. What’s next? Are you ready to claim them as your new BFF or potential love interest? Are we to liking, friending, or mating yet? Not so fast! I haven’t told you about another very strong source of attraction yet. Psychological attraction. Positive attracts positive or negative attracts negative for that matter. Although people tend to believe that opposites attract, at the end of the day, the similarity is a stronger predictor of liking and attraction.
Psychological attraction refers to your inner qualities. What do you have to offer someone other than a pretty face or a brilliant smile? People tend to connect and bond because of similarity. We interact easily with people who are similar to us. Similarity breeds contentment and feelings of validation. We like people who like us and are like us. No, we don’t want exact replicas of us, but we tend to be attracted to people who are similar in education, religious beliefs, and personality. A research study conducted in the 1980s looked at similarity and attraction from a unique perspective. The researchers presented participants in the study with two sets of photographs of couples who lived together for at least 25 years. The first set of photographs was from an earlier time in the couples’ relationship, and the other set was more recent photos of the couples 25 years later. Participants in the study were much better at matching the older photographs than the early ones. The researchers concluded that the longer the couples stayed together, the more the partners began to look like one another! And couples who rated themselves as more satisfied looked more like one another than couples who rated themselves as less satisfied.
Do you like me yet? I’m hoping that you do because you made it this far down the post!
A few years ago, my 7-year old grandson came to me and asked, “What must I do to be likable?” (he didn’t put it exactly that way, but he melted my heart nonetheless!) He also started the wheels turning in my brain and thinking, “What do we know about why people like other people?”
What draws us to other people?
You could say that the psychology of attraction is based on a rewards system.
When people are proximal or close to us in distance, work where we work, or frequent the same places, it costs us less time and effort to nurture friendships and close relationships with them. We get to enjoy greater rewards with diminished costs.
It’s rewarding to us when we like people who are like us and those people like us back. Can you say validation feels good?
When people are attractive, we get rewarded by looking at them and associating with them ( so shallow, I know, but it’s my research area, I’m just passing on knowledge).
Talk to me!
Do you have any funny, interesting, or romantic stories about how you met someone in your life that’s close to you? Did any of these factors listed here come into play? I’d love to hear about it!
