'Is beauty really in the eyes of the beholder?'

The Psychology Behind Attraction

* This article will have another part coming later.

As humans, we have higher cognitive processes like thinking, planning, decision making, creativity- it is what primarily differentiates us from most animals. Having all these qualities, it is expected that humans would behave in a rational, critical and seemingly justified way. But as we all know, we are heavily influenced by a varied range of feelings, emotions which are indirect results of our social needs- to be affiliated to a group, to be liked and even loved.

At some point in life, everyone has thought of this question-What makes them attracted to someone, enough to decide to go into a relationship with a person they most likely met by chance? What makes them choose who is going to be ‘just a friend’ and who has the potential to be a romantic partner? Are the reasons situational/contextual or biological-as some people would say ‘it’s all hormones!’

‘How did you know you were attracted to this person?’ most people would answer with vague anecdotes or adjectives, but they all share the same feeling- that they just knew. Many researches have focused on what makes someone attractive to another. Is beauty really in the eyes of the beholder? A meta-analysis of more than hundreds of studies by Judith Langlois and colleagues suggests most likely it’s not. In David Landy and Harry Segall’s study (1974), it was found that attractive children received better grades than unattractive children. They were also more popular and social. Attractive adults were considered successful in their work, youthful, healthy and sexually experienced, physically symmetrical.

Researches indicate that Attractiveness depends on both evolution and culture. There are also gender differences. Among college students, it was tested that women prefer social status more and for men, it was physical attractiveness. (Li, Yong, Tov, Sng, Fletcher, Valentine, et al., 2013)

the concept of reproductive fitness states that when we are attracted to someone, we are partly looking for a potential mate. So we use cues (conscious or unconscious) to identify good reproductive genes.

In the case of women, for example, women who sniffed T-shirts of

unknown origin preferred those that had been worn by symmetrical men, but only when they were about to ovulate! ( Gangestad & Simpson, 2000.) If she’s looking for a short term mate, she might prefer men who are competitive, if it’s a long term she may prefer warmth and faithfulness more.

For a man, a woman’s figure matters a lot (sorry men, studies tell us that) they pay attention to the waist to hip ratio. Evolutionary psychology would say it is because an ‘hourglass’ figure signified peak fertility among their ancestors. In many cultures where being heavy is seen as unhealthy, men want a slimmer waist to hip ratio.

Even though standards of beauty are completely cultural and different across the world, they all have facial and physical symmetry as the main anchor for judging beauty. Gill Rhodes (2006) has found that facial averageness rather than distinctiveness was correlated with facial attractiveness more. So when someone tells you to look unique to impress someone, it’s probably better not to listen to them!

One evolutionary aspect of this would be that we use average face as a prototype to identify human face resembling objects in infancy. Also, an average face may induce more familiarity and warmth than a striking one. (when you look at someone with exceptional features - don’t you think whoa, he’s/she’s out of my league!)

Now People may pass the initial attraction test, but that doesn’t mean they are liked yet. There are many people we meet throughout our life who seem alluring at first but as time goes by, we find that we just don’t gel together. What makes us think so?

       

• Proximity: This is a given. If you remember high school ( or if you are in one )first friendship was probably made with someone who sat next to you! There’s always a good chance you’ll like people more if they live close by or work and study with you.

• Familiarity: proximity and familiarity go hand in hand. Without being close, you can’t be familiar with the person. When you see a person more and more chances are you’d like them more. Advertisements often use this trick- they present an enticing stimulus every now and then so we automatically start paying attention and liking them. This has been called mere exposure effect (Zajonc,1968). too much familiarity can also lead to finding out there are more dissimilarities than similarities.

• Attitude compatibility: chances are that if someone likes the same classical piano artist which no one else listens to, your liking towards him would increase. As time goes by, liking depends more on attitude similarities rather than the other two factors. Imagine having a far-right person as a roommate when you’re a staunch leftist. Ouch. Results about this are so consistent that they have gotten a ‘law of attraction’ from it-– “attraction towards a person bears a linear relationship to the actual proportion of similar attitudes shared with that person.”

• Personal characteristics: this is kind of a trump card. Despite being different people, if someone helps you out in a grave situation- you’ll obviously start liking them more. Having the same interests and skills are important, but if the person has qualities like kindness, warmth, trustworthiness, openness, it may lead to a reciprocal liking.

• Culture: although some traits are universal ( extroverted, likable, sexually warm) some traits vary from culture to culture. In a place like North America where individualism is valued one might want their partner assertive and strong - whereas, in collectivist South Korea kindness, honesty would be appreciated.

These factors are manipulated by matchmaking industries - you’ll see the process of ‘assortative matching’ going on. On Dating or matrimonial sites, you’ll seek a person at random but you’ll still have some parameters. The site will try to match you on those- appropriate gender, socioeconomic class, physique, demography, aspiration levels - which are known to enhance your liking already!

We’ll get to know the theories and some classic researches that have been done in the field of interpersonal attraction in part 2 of this article.

References:

1.Landy, D., & Sigall, H. (1974). Beauty is talent: Task evaluation as a function of the 

performer's physical attractiveness.

2.Fletcher, Garth & Kerr, Patrick & Li, Norman & Valentine, Katherine. (2014). Predicting Romantic Interest and Decisions in the Very Early Stages of Mate Selection Standards, Accuracy, and Sex Differences. Personality & social psychology bulletin. 40. 10.1177/0146167213519481.

3.Rhodes, Gillian. (2006). The Evolutionary Psychology of Facial Beauty. Annual review of psychology. 57. 199-226. 10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190208.

4.Gangestad, Steven & Simpson, Jeffry. (2000). The Evolution of Human Mating: Trade-Offs and Strategic Pluralism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 23. 573 - 587. 10.1017/S0140525X0000337X.

5.Hogg, M. A., & Vaughan, G. M. (1995). Social psychology: An introduction. Prentice-Hall, Inc; Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Author : Anonymous