discussion 4
crisalza09
Ch11AttractionExclusion.pptxChapter 11
Attraction & Exclusion
Today’s Outline
Attraction
Belongingness
Similarity
Physical attractiveness
Reciprocity
Rejection
Causes of rejection
Effects of rejection
Loneliness
Attraction & Exclusion
As social animals, humans are, at their core, truly concerned with attraction and exclusion
Indeed the point of social psychology may be to understand why some are accepted and loved, while others are rejected
Take a moment to consider times in your life where you might have been afraid of romantic rejection or perhaps were seeking social acceptance with a new group of peers
Attraction & Exclusion
The need to belong is defined as the desire to form and maintain close, lasting relationships with some other individuals
Needing to belong is considered a fundamental drive or basic need of the human psyche
Warren Jones, “In two decades of studying loneliness, I have met many people who said they had no friends. I have never met any one who didn’t want to have any friends.”
Need to belong
From an evolutionary psychology perspective:
Attraction and acceptance are necessary for reproduction
Additionally, humans likely developed a herd mentality to increase our odds of survival
Consider all the ways we know our behavior changes in groups
Monkeys can recognize that any two monkeys may have an alliance, be forming one, or might be likely to fight
One theory is that the human brain developed more to keep track of a highly complex social world
Two components to belongingness
1. Regular, positive social interactions
Regular is key here, many of us have formed friendships but moved on to new situations in our life and lost regular contact with old friends
Positive is also key, hanging out with that person you always argue with doesn’t fill that social need
2. Stable relationship/friendship in which people share mutual concern for each other
Typically research has shown people want about 1-5 close friends
People are less concerned with casual friends/acquaintances
How bad for you is not belonging?
Belonging is called a need, not a want, perhaps for these reasons
Death rates from various diseases increase among people with no social connections (Lynch, 1979)
People who are alone have more mental and physical problems (Uchino, Cacioppo, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1996)
Loneliness reduces the ability of the immune system to heal the body (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2005)
Attraction – Similarity, complementarity, & opposites
Which old saying turns out to be true, “Birds of a feather flock together” or “Opposites attract”
The research has pointed to birds of a feather being the clear winner
In any relationship ranging from acquaintance to lover, opposites are unlikely to stay connected in the long run
Typically, but not always, our friends are similar in age, race, education level, political leaning, economic status, etc.
Note this is kind of a bad thing too, as it can lead us to assume everyone shares the opinions of your social group
How often do you see people unfriend others on Facebook over political disagreements?
Attraction – Similarity, complementarity, & opposites
Similarity
We tend to like friends who do the same activities that we do
Some researchers have even suggested that when a romantic couple gets into a relationship, if their levels of physical attractiveness aren’t quite similar, they will be more likely to break up
Have couples who are in different physical leagues stuck out to you as unusual?
Attraction – Similarity, complementarity, & opposites
Indeed, matching
hypothesis has been
supported, couples
are more likely to break
up if there’s a difference
in physical attractiveness
(even serious couples)
Attractiveness & Attraction
Speaking of physical attractiveness, most of us would say ‘we know it when we see it,’ but how do researchers define and measure it?
For starters, which of these 3 faces is the most attractive?
Attractiveness & Attraction
I chose the middle one. According to research findings, most people would choose either the middle or the right photo
The left photo is the original
Attractiveness & Attraction
Facial symmetry
Symmetrical faces are almost always rated as more attractive
The more symmetrical, the better
The implication is that facial symmetry implies genetic fitness. Asymmetry is a sign of genetic imperfections
To demonstrate that genetics are the explanation behind this, researchers (Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999) took the t-shirts that men slept in and asked women to smell and rate their scent
Some of the men had clear genetic asymmetry, length of pinky fingers or ear lobes
Women preferred the smell of men with genetic symmetry
They especially preferred the symmetric men’s scent when
at the point in their period when reproduction was ideal
Attractiveness & Attraction
Facial symmetry continued
More research has used computer software to merge/combine faces
For example, people rate the attractiveness of two faces, and then the faces are combined, and they rate the composite of the previous two faces
People mostly like composite faces better
In fact, the more faces that one combines, the more people liked it
E.g. a 16-face facial composite is preferred over a 4-face composite
Symmetrical, or ‘averaged,’ faces are preferred
Consider how saying someone looks inbred is the opposite
Lack of genetic diversity causes issues and is unappealing
Attractiveness & Attraction
Alright, we’ve covered faces, what about bodies?
Attractiveness & Attraction
Studies by Singh (1993) measured male ratings of silhouettes of woman’s bodies
He manipulated the size of the waist (belly fat) and the size of the hips
He find found that a low waist to hip ration, like .7, was preferred. This matches the standard hourglass shape people talk about
A small effect was found for women preferring men with a .9 waist to hip ratio
Subsequent research found the male shoulder to waist ratio was much more important, e.g. a V-shape
Attractiveness & Attraction
Alright, but how does physical attractiveness stack up to other aspects of attractiveness (having things in common, warmth, career success, etc.)
It can be summed up by one of my favorite quotes from your textbook authors:
“The fancy theories about matchmaking and similarity and reciprocity couldn’t shine through the overwhelming preference for the best-looking partners”
Attractiveness & Attraction
Attractiveness predicts date satisfaction more than any other dimension
Relates back to the Halo Effect, which can also be called ‘what is beautiful is good effect’
People (presumably) have other good traits if they’re attractive
Attractiveness & Attraction
Hortacsu and Ariely (2006) found that women stated a preference for taller men
But that preference could be offset if the man made enough money
E.g. for a 5 foot 8 inch guy, he could get as many dates as a taller guy if he made roughly 150k more
E.g. a 5 foot 2 guy could keep up with taller guys if he made 277k more than them
However, other research has shown that while women state a preference for taller guys, they don’t find them more attractive once having met them (Sheppard & Strathman, 1989)
Similarly, short men don’t report having less dates than tall men
Attractiveness & Attraction
Beyond considering romantic or sexual partners, being good looking confers other benefits. Good looking people are more likely to:
Do better in job interviews
Receive more help from strangers during emergencies
Be more popular among their peers
This even applies to young children
Teachers like attractive kids better as well
Finally, even 3-month-old babies show a preference for staring longer at attractive faces
Attractiveness & Attraction
According to principles of behaviorism:
We like people and romantic partners when they praise or compliment us (feels good, so we have positive associations with them)
We also like people who do us favors. This can take the form of help, gifts, cooking food, etc.
The exception in both of those cases is when the favors or compliments are seen as manipulative
Attractiveness & Attraction
As we discussed in the social influence chapter, reciprocity has compelling effects
As such, when someone likes us, we are inclined to like them by default
One exception is when we don’t like someone back and don’t want to spend time with them
Can cause us to feel guilty and/or turn them away
Attractiveness & Attraction
Nonverbal reciprocity
Lakin & Chartrand (2005) found that participants liked confederates better who mimicked their behavior (giggling, putting one’s hand on one’s face, etc.) than those confederates who didn’t mimic
Try it out in your life! Just don’t make it too obvious ;p
Attractiveness & Attraction
A few final points about attraction
The ‘mere exposure effect’ (Ch. 7) applies to liking people too
Also called the propinquity effect, we like people that we encounter regularly
Makes us feel like our environment is stable and predictable
But like the mere exposure effect, if our initial response is dislike, disliking gets worse
Social allergy effect: a partner’s annoying habits get more annoying over time
Rejection
Rejection is a broad term, referring to being turned down for a date, being dumped, being fired, being kicked off of a team, not invited to an event with your usual friends, etc.
Ostracism is another word for it, being excluded, rejected, or ignored by others
Why does rejection occur?
What causes rejection
Reasons differ by context
Among children, other kids are rejected if they’re:
1. Aggressive
physically or verbally
2. Withdrawn
Often just by him/herself
3. Different/deviant
Just unlike peers in some way
What causes rejection
Among adults
Typically deviance
Just being too different from people around you
Shame on some level, because that stifles uniqueness
Bad apple
Making others of your group look bad
What causes rejection
Romantic Rejection
When turning people down, people often cite external reasons (too busy, not looking for a relationship, etc.)
But the reason is almost always internal (not attracted to person, don’t like them, etc.)
Those external answers are polite, but can lead to confusion
Rejected people can become a stalkers
There has also been a trend lately of men rejected by women to become violent and go on a shooting spree as a result
Psychological effects of rejection
The effects of rejection are uniformly bad
Pain
Illness
Depression
Suicidal thoughts
Life seeming pointless
Risky sexual behavior
People can develop rejection sensitivity
Reluctance to open up to new people for fear of being hurt
Psychological effects of rejection
Similar to shocking physical pain, sometimes the psychological response to an important rejection is numbness
The mental distress, anxiety, and sadness come later
Rejection makes people temporarily stupid, in terms of cognitive performance
Rejection also suppresses people’s ability to self-regulate or control their behavior
More likely to binge eat sweets
Behavioral effects of rejection
Less generous, cooperative, and helpful
More impulsive and destructive
Higher levels of aggression
Before shootings in the U.S. became so frequent, the narrative was that school shooters were often rejected outcasts
There may be some truth to that narrative, but it’s not always the case and it certainly doesn’t excuse shooting people
Loneliness
When we discuss lonely people, we mean chronically lonely, not temporarily because someone moved to a new city
Comparing lonely to non-lonely people defies a lot of the stereotypes about lonely people
There are no appreciable differences in attractiveness, intelligence, or general social skills between lonely and non-lonely people
But, lonely people do seem to do a bad job of detecting the emotional states of people they interact with
This may lead to friction in social relationships
Lonely people interact with others as often as non-lonely (quantity), but the interaction quality is poorer
Loneliness
Recommendations:
Someone who is often lonely should get a pet! They help a lot
Improve at monitoring emotional states
Continuing to attempt to form meaningful bonds with people
Live closer to family
