Consider the following examples of research findings: 1. High satisfaction with one’s direct supervisor leads to lower levels of employee turnover. In other words, employees who are highly satisfied with their direct supervisor are less likely to leave

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Home >Psychology homework help >Consider the following examples of research findings: 1. High satisfaction with one’s direct supervisor leads to lower levels of employee turnover. In other words, employees who are highly satisfied with their direct supervisor are less likely to leave

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The declining marriage rate for people from divorced families has played a small role in the weakening divorce cycle, but a larger part is directly attributable to the changing message (Note missing letter) children receive when their parents get divorced. Recall that the divorce cycle can be attributed to the reduced commitment to marriage that results from growing up in a divorced family. The message that children received about commit- ment was doubtless much stronger in the days when almost nobody got divorced because it stood out more starkly against the experiences of one’s peers (few of whom likely came from divorced families). Under these conditions, children learned that it might be preferable not to stay in a marriage that had turned sour. These lessons were doubtless reinforced by the stigma and shame of life in a single-parent family. In contrast, no matter how painful it is at the time, a modern divorce does not stand out against the experiences of one’s peers and therefore does not send nearly as strong a mes- sage to children. This is the most likely reason that the divorce cycle weakened during the latter third of the 20th century. Declining stigma may have also affected rates of divorce transmission.

Nicholas H. Wolfinger

See also Divorce, Children and; Divorce, Prevalence and Trends; Marital Stability, Prediction of; Marriage, Transition to; Mate Selection

Further Readings

Amato, P. R. (1996). Explaining the intergenerational transmission of divorce. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 628–640.

Amato, P. R., & DeBoer, D. (2001). The transmission of divorce across generations: Relationship skills or commitment to marriage? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63, 1038–1051.

Wolfinger, N. H. (2005). Understanding the divorce cycle. New York: Cambridge University Press.

InteRnet, attRactIon on

What is the basis of attraction? In not very scien- tific terms, attraction—whether on the Internet or in person—remains largely a mystery. Do opposites

attract or is it the case that birds of a feather flock together? In recent decades, many theories have been developed about what attracts people to one another, when, and why. Although much remains unknown about the dynamics of attraction, some critical factors have been identified. This entry dis- tinguishes factors involved in attraction on the Internet in different kinds of online venues and as compared with face-to-face social settings. It exam- ines the causes and correlates, explores the conse- quences of attraction for potential and ongoing romantic and platonic virtually formed relation- ships, and examines the technology and social changes that affect attraction online.

Attraction, Lack of Attraction, and Physical Appearance

In face-to-face interactions, physical appearance has been found to be perhaps the most influential factor in initial attraction. Physical appearance plays an essential role in the attraction process and creates the primary initial “gate” that determines who an individual will approach when in a crowded room of strangers, the friends who will be made, and especially the people who will be approached in hopes of developing a romantic relationship.

Without being aware that they are doing so, people habitually and automatically categorize others by physical features such as ethnicity, style of dressing, and level of physical attractiveness. Research has shown that, based on only seeing a photograph of an individual, there is extremely high consensus about the judgments most people tend to make about the person, across a wide variety of personality measurements, based only on physical appearance. Based solely on facial fea- tures, people draw strong conclusions about the other person’s levels of intelligence, kindness, sense of humor, motivation, ability to succeed, and other personality traits. The adage “What is beautiful is good” applies to the judgments that people tend to make about others because people tend to assume that those who are more physically attractive also have more positive personality characteristics and are more interesting and attractive in other ways.

Research has shown that first impressions also tend to be lasting impressions and bear on attrac- tion to others over time. First impressions tend to

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882 Internet, Attraction on

become enduring because people selectively focus on information that confirms rather than discon- firms their initial judgment as they interact with the other person or meet him or her again at a later time. Furthermore, the expectations others form based on their first impression may actually elicit confirmatory behavior from the other person.

Features that are readily perceived, such as physical appearance (attractiveness), an apparent stigma (e.g., obesity), or apparent shyness, thus often serve as gates in face-to-face interactions. These gates often open to admit those who are physically attractive and outgoing, but also often bar the way when the person is less physically attractive or less socially skilled. Attraction on the Internet can have different bases, however. Katelyn McKenna conducted a study that examined deter- minants of attraction in face-to-face interactions and in Internet interactions by comparing ran- domly paired participants who interacted face to face to those who interacted via text-only chat on the Internet. The study found that when people interacted on the Internet, in the absence of physi- cal appearance, the quality of the interaction, espe- cially the feelings of similarity, intimacy, and closeness attained, determined liking and attrac- tion. In the face-to-face meetings, however, the quality of the conversation or the similarity of views, interests, and values did not matter to judg- ments of liking at all, suggesting that physical appearance dominates liking and overwhelms other interpersonally important factors for attraction. Not surprisingly, when participants were asked to freely describe the characteristics of their interac- tion partner, online partners focused on personality traits, whereas those who met face to face focused largely on physical characteristics, using descrip- tors such as tall, blonde, and well dressed.

When interactions take place with new online acquaintances in venues where physical appear- ance is not apparent, such as common interest groups, instant messages (IMs), chat rooms, or the comment sections of blogs, the way an individual looks does not become a barrier to potential rela- tionships. Participants in such venues typically only exchange photographs or get together in per- son once they have already developed an interest in one another based on their text-based interactions. When a relationship is formed in this way, the level of physical attractiveness does not carry as much

weight when the individuals do finally meet in person. Physical attractiveness, at that point, plays a less influential role in attraction than it would had the participants known immediately what the other looked like when they first became acqu- ainted. Research has also found that the emphasis on physical aspects of self and other is much less when individuals engage in romantic cyberflirting in chat rooms than when flirting in person. Instead, the opinions expressed, and the information about the self that is revealed, form the basis of attraction in such online venues, rather than more superficial features, such as appearance, that drive attraction in face-to-face interactions.

When physical appearance is immediately in evidence on the Internet (such as in dating sites, social networking sites like MySpace, and blogs), then the same biases that operate when people meet in person also operate online. As in face-to- face social settings, in online dating venues, when it comes to initial attraction, similarity plays only a minor role compared with the powerful role of physical appearance. Participants in online dating sites use the physical appearance of potential part- ners as the first criteria and only examine the pro- files of those who pass the physical appearance test to discover the potential partner’s interests, values, and goals. Indeed, Monica Whitty and Adrian Carr conducted a study that found that more than 85 percent of dating site users would not even con- sider examining profiles that did not contain a photograph. Other studies have shown that, even after discovering more about the person from the available profile, it is the attraction to the photo that is the deciding motivator to contact or bypass the person. Andrew Fiore and Judith Donath used the number of messages expressing interest that online daters received as a measure of attractive- ness and found that men who were older and more educated received the greatest number of responses. For women, however, it was the attractiveness of the photograph along with self-descriptions that did not describe their body type as being “heavy” that received the most responses, regardless of the other information provided in their profiles.

Similarity and Attraction

The Internet has exponentially expanded the potential for individuals to meet others with

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important similarities. Common interest groups of every description can be easily found on the Internet where individuals can meet others who share their hobbies, political and religious beliefs, lifestyle preferences, and specific combinations of all these. The Internet can be particularly useful for locating others who share specialized interests (such as an interest in medieval history), who are experiencing similar health or emotional difficul- ties, or who share aspects of identity that are socially sanctioned and thus are often not readily identifiable in one’s physical community. In a lon- gitudinal study of participants taking part in common interest groups online, McKenna found that the relationships, including the romantic rela- tionships formed among members of those groups, were more stable and durable over a 2-year period of time than comparable relationships formed through traditional means. Studies using the same 2-year timeframe, as well as relationships at the same developmental stage at the start of the study (couples who had been “in love” for 3–6 months), have found that the most commonly given reason for the dissolution of romantic relationships formed in traditional settings is that the couples discovered that they did not, after all, share the same interests and values. In contrast, those who met their partner through a common interest group online noted the common interests and val- ues they shared as an important component in the continuation and closeness of their relationship.

Mutual Self-Disclosure and Attraction

It has been well established that people tend to more readily engage in acts of self-disclosure on the Internet than they do in person. Both on the Internet and in person, situation-appropriate self-disclosure fosters feelings of liking and attraction between people. There is a strong tendency for individuals to like and feel attracted to those to whom they self- disclose, to like those who disclose to them, and to disclose more to those they like. Self-disclosure is important to the development of intimacy because it entails being able to express and have accepted one’s true personality and inner feelings.

Self-disclosure also has implications for maintaining levels of attraction. In promising rela- tionships in which the partners do not get beyond

superficial levels of self-disclosure, the parties tend to lose the attraction they feel toward one another rela- tively quickly. When a strong foundation of mutual self-disclosure has been laid, the parties tend to con- tinue to feel deep levels of attraction for one another and to be motivated to maintain the relationship. The tendency to disclose more about oneself, and sooner, to others on the Internet has been linked with feelings of attraction developing more quickly between the parties than typically occurs when new acquaintanceships begin in person. Even with long- standing relationships with family and friends, the heightened self-disclosure that frequently occurs between them through e-mail and IMs has been shown to increase feelings of closeness and to deepen the relationships.

Technological and Social Changes Affecting Attraction on the Internet

When the Internet was in its infancy, the information available and the interactions between individuals were completely textual in nature. Interpersonal attraction at that time was wholly founded on the power of words: through the ideas and thoughts expressed, self-disclosures and aspects of the self that were revealed, and simi- larities discovered between the writers. It was perceived as being risky to provide identifying information about oneself in any sort of public forum, and thus the majority of users cloaked themselves in anonymity by using nicknames in their interactions online. This anonymity allowed users to be bolder in their self-disclosures than they would be were they identifiable.

Despite that society viewed Internet-initiated relationships with skepticism and, to some extent, disapproval, friendships and romantic relationships between users flourished in this text-only medium. Because of fears surrounding meeting someone only known through the anonymous environment of the Internet and because of forging a relationship entirely through written form, users typically cor- responded for an average of 3 months prior to tak- ing the step of meeting one another in person. Internet-initiated relationships became increasingly common and thus increasingly accepted in society.

Technological advances changed the Internet from a text-only media to one that commonly

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includes pictures and prerecorded videos, voice chat, and live video feeds. Each of these techno- logical advances has affected attraction processes on the Internet. When pictures and video are ini- tially available, then attraction on the Internet is based on the same determinants of attraction as occurs outside of the Internet.

The technological advances have kept step with the social acceptance of the Internet as a venue for forging and maintaining relationships. Social accep- tance and the accompanying reduction in fears sur- rounding the Internet have decreased the tendency for users to interact anonymously. As users become increasingly identifiable, there is a corresponding chilling effect on the self-disclosures they make with others through the Internet. Social acceptance has also encouraged Internet users to meet one another much more quickly than they did in the past. Dating-site participants exchange an average of only two e-mails before arranging a meeting, for instance. When time and effort have been invested in a relationship (along with an exchange of inti- mate disclosures), people tend to be more moti- vated to maintain a positive opinion of the other and to wish to continue that relationship even if, upon meeting, the other’s physical and personality attributes are less than expected or optimally desired. Research suggests that the more quickly a new or potential relationship is moved offline, the less chance it stands of the attraction between the parties continuing or the relationship developing further. As the Internet increasingly mirrors com- munication in the physical world, so too will the patterns and bases of attraction on the Internet.

Katelyn Y. A. McKenna

See also Communication, Instant Messaging and Other New Media; Computer Matching Services; Computer- Mediated Communication; Internet Dating; Interpersonal Attraction; Technology and Relationships

Further Readings

Baker, A. (1998, July). Cyberspace couples finding romance online then meeting for the first time in real life. CMCMagazine. Retrieved from http://www .december.com/cmc/mag/1998/jul/baker.html

Fiore, A. T., & Donath, J. S. (2005). Homophily in online dating: When do you like someone like yourself? Computer-Human Interaction. Retrieved

from http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~atf/papers/ fiore_chi2005_short.pdf

McKenna, K. Y. A. (2007). MySpace or your place: Relationship initiation and development in the wired and wireless world. In S. Sprecher, A. Wenzel, & J. Harvey (Eds.), Handbook of relationship initiation (pp. 235–247). New York: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.

McKenna, K. Y. A. (2007). A progressive affair: Online dating to real-world mating. In M. T. Whitty, A. J. Baker, & J. A. Inman (Eds.), Online match-making (pp. 112–124). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

McKenna, K. Y. A., Green, A. S., & Gleason, M. J. (2002). Relationship formation on the Internet: What’s the big attraction? Journal of Social Issues, 58, 9–32.

Sprecher, S., Schwartz, P., Harvey, J., & Hatfield, E. (2008). Thebusinessoflove.com: Relationship initiation at Internet matchmaking services. In S. Sprecher, A. Wenzel, & J. Harvey (Eds.), The handbook of relationship initiation (pp. 249–265). New York: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.

Whitty, M. T., & Carr, A. N. (2006). Cyberspace romance: The psychology of online relationships. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

InteRnet and socIal connectedness

When Internet-based communication technologies, such as e-mail and chat, became available to the general public in the 1990s, it was widely assumed in both academic and popular literature that these technologies would reduce people’s social connect- edness. Social connectedness refers to the relation- ships that people have with others in their environment (e.g., friends, family members, and neighbors). This reduction hypothesis rested on three assumptions: (1) the Internet motivates people to form superficial online relationships with strangers, which are less beneficial than existing, offline relationships; (2) time spent with online strangers occurs at the expense of time spent with existing friends and relationships; and (3) strong, close offline relationships are replaced by weak, distant online relationships, so that the overall quality of people’s relationships is reduced.

The reduction hypothesis received considerable empirical support at the early stages of Internet adoption. Several studies conducted in the second

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half of the 1990s demonstrated that Internet use significantly reduced people’s social connected- ness. However, the size of these negative effects was usually small. In such Internet effects studies, social connectedness was operationalized as, for example, the size of people’s local network; the time they spent with family members, friends, and neighbors; their perceived social support; or the perceived quality of their relationships with family members and friends.

However, although these reduction effects were demonstrated consistently in the second half of the 1990s, at least two changes in the use of the Internet may render such effects less plausible at the current stage of Internet adoption. First, at the early stages of the Internet, it was hardly possible to maintain one’s existing social network on the Internet because the greater part of this network was not yet online. At the time, online contacts were inherently separated from offline contacts. Currently, how- ever, the majority of people in Western countries have access to the Internet. At such high Internet access rates, a reduction effect is less plausible because people have more opportunity to maintain their existing relationships through the Internet than at the early stages of the Internet.

Second, in the past few years, several commu- nication technologies (e.g., IMing and social networking sites) have been developed that en - co u rage users to communicate with existing con- tacts. Earlier Internet-based communication technologies, such as Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) and public chat rooms, were primarily used for communication between strangers around certain topics or activities. However, more recent technologies distinguish themselves from previous ones by people’s predominant communication with existing relationships.

Against this backdrop, reductive effects of the Internet on people’s social connectedness have become less likely. It is no surprise, therefore, that the majority of studies that appeared in the new millennium have found positive effects of different types of online communication on social connect- edness. To explain these positive results, scholars have put forward the stimulation hypothesis. This hypothesis attributes the positive effects of online communication on social connectedness to en hanced intimate self-disclosure. It is assumed that the reduced auditory and visual cues in online

communication serve as facilitators of intimate online self-disclosure. This Internet-enhanced self- disclosure seems to occur during communication with existing friends, as well as with newly formed relationships. In fact, the stimulation hypothesis is based on three assumptions. First, the Internet’s reduced auditory and visual cues encourage people to disclose their inner feelings more easily than in real-life interactions. Second, intimate self- disclosure is an important predictor of reciprocal liking, caring, trust, and, thereby, of the quality of relationships. Third, this Internet-enhanced inti- mate self-disclosure stimulates relationship forma- tion and maintenance.

Several studies have indeed shown that online communication stimulates intimate online self- disclosure. These studies have also demonstrated that this intimate online self-disclosure promotes online friendship formation, as well as the quality of existing relationships. As a result, the stimula- tion hypothesis can currently be considered a valid description of the impact of Internet communica- tion on people’s social connectedness.

Shortcomings and Future Research

Existing research on the relation between Internet use and social connectedness suffers from several shortcomings. First, in several Internet effects studies, Internet use has often been treated as a one-dimensional concept. These studies only employed a measure of daily or weekly time spent on the Internet and did not distinguish among dif- ferent types of Internet use, let alone among dif- ferent types of Internet communication. However, it is widely understood in the media effects litera- ture that different types of media use may result in different outcomes. If the Internet is to influence social connectedness, it will be through its poten- tial to alter the nature of communication when being online. Consequently, not Internet use per se, but specific types of Internet communication should be the focus when investigating Internet effects on social connectedness. Some types of online communication technologies (i.e., IMing and e-mail)—in fact those that are predominantly used to maintain one’s social network—seem to increase social connectedness. However, commu- nication technologies that are predominantly used

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