Keys to Attraction

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Interpersonal Attraction
doing
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PROXIMITY AND LIKING
Research on environmental
factors in attraction suggests
that, barring bad first impressions, the
more often we make contact with someone—as neighbors, classmates, or coworkers, for example—the more we tend
to like that person. Does this principle apply in your life? To find out, think about
how and where you met each of your
closest friends. If you can think of cases
in which proximity did not lead to liking,
what do you think interfered with the
formation of friendship?
by
The challenge to be met in creating such cooperative experiences in the real world is
that the participants must be of equal status—a challenge made more difficult in many
countries by the status differences that still exist between ethnic groups (Dixon, Durrheim, & Tredoux, 2005; Kenworthy et al., 2006).
In the final analysis, contact can provide only part of the solution to the problems
of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. To reduce ethnic prejudice, we must
develop additional techniques to address the social cognitions and perceptions that lie
at the core of bigotry and hatred toward people who are different from ourselves (Monteith, Zuwerink, & Devine, 1994). Altering these mental processes will be difficult
because, as we saw earlier, they can operate both consciously and unconsciously, causing even those who do not see themselves as prejudiced to discriminate against individuals who are different (Banaji et al., 2001; Uleman, Blader, & Todorov, 2005). However, recent research suggests that it may be possible to change even unconscious forms
of stereotyping and prejudice (Kawakami, Dovidio, & van Kamp, 2005; Plant &
Peruche, 2005; Wheeler & Fiske, 2005).
Interpersonal Attraction
䉴 What factors affect who likes whom?
Research on prejudice suggests some of the reasons why people may come to dislike or
even hate other people. An equally fascinating aspect of social cognition is why people
like or love other people. Folklore tells us that “opposites attract” but also that “birds
of a feather flock together.” Each statement is partly true, but neither is entirely accurate in all cases. We begin our coverage of interpersonal attraction by discussing the
factors that draw people toward one another. We then examine how liking sometimes
develops into more intimate relationships.
Keys to Attraction
Whether you like someone or not depends partly on situational factors and partly on
personal characteristics.
The Environment One of the most important determinants of attraction is simple
physical proximity (Berscheid & Reis, 1998). As long as you do not initially dislike a person, your liking for that person will increase with additional contact (Brehm et al., 2005).
This proximity phenomenon—another example of the mere-exposure effect mentioned
earlier—helps account for why next-door neighbors are usually more likely to become
friends than people who live farther from one another. Chances are, most of your friends
are people you met as neighbors, co-workers, or classmates (Liben-Nowell et al., 2005).
The circumstances under which people first meet also influence attraction. You are
much more likely to be attracted to a stranger if you meet in comfortable, as opposed
to uncomfortable, physical conditions. Similarly, if you receive a reward in the presence
of a stranger, the chances are greater that you will like that stranger, even if the stranger
is not the one giving the reward (Clark & Pataki, 1995). In one study, for example, an
experimenter judged one person’s creativity while another person watched. Compared
with those who received a negative evaluation, participants who were evaluated positively tended to like the observer more (Griffitt & Guay, 1969). At least among strangers,
then, liking can occur through associating someone with something pleasant.
Similarity People also tend to like those they perceive as similar to themselves on
variables such as age, religion, smoking or drinking habits or being a “morning” or
“evening” person (Buston & Emlen, 2003; Rushton & Bons, 2005). Similarity in attitudes is another important influence on attraction (Brehm et al., 2005).