INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION

          REVIEW: PHYSICAL ATTRACTION, LOVE, PROXIMITY AND                                                SIMILARITY

 An old saying declares that opposites attract, and lovers are found of recounting how different they are from each other. Physical attractiveness determines how well others like him or her. Unlike character and personality, physical appearance is a factor over which we seemingly have little control and it seems unfair to use it as a criterion for liking someone. It is important that our social standing and self esteem are enhanced when we are seen with physical attractive companions.

Research shows the best single predictor of whether two people are friends is proximity or how far apart they live. Student who shared an apartment were twice as likely to be friends compared to those who were simply on the same floor.

One of the major reasons that proximity creates liking is that it creates familiarity. The family breeds liking – people are asked to raise photographs of unknown faces according to how much they thought they would like the person. The lowest rate of liking was made by those who had never seen the photograph before. The highest rates of liking are made by those who had seen the photograph most often. This illustrates mere exposure effect.  It is clear that if you are not beautiful or you find your admiration of someone unreciprocated, simply finds way to be nearby. Proximity and familiarity may just work in your favor.

In short the old saying of opposites attracts is mostly false. Statistical surveys show that husband and wives are significantly similar to each other not only in sociological characteristics – such as age, race, religion, education, and socioeconomic class – but also with respect to psychological characteristics like intelligence and physical characteristic such as height and eye color. Similar results were obtained in a real life field study in which separate observers rated the physical attractiveness of members of couple in bars and theater lobbies and at social events. Less attractive people seek less attractive partners. They overall result of this process is attractiveness similarity: most of us end up with partners who are about as attractive as we are.

Any time we encounter someone new who reminds of someone who has been important to us in our past, that sense of recognition influences our perceptions and indeed our liking – of the new person. This is known as transference. If you want to forge a new friendship or relationship and not merely recycle an old one, you need to start with a new acquaintance that is like no other. And you should be cautious when someone approaches you and says, ‘you remind me of someone’.

Love is more than just strong liking. Most of us know people we like very much but do not love and some of us have felt passionate attraction for someone we did not particularly like. The concept of romantic love is an old one, but the belief that it has much to do with marriage is more recent and far from universal. Close relationships are said to produce self expansion – or increase our potential abilities and resources in multiple ways. As we become close to another person, we gain access to that person’s resources in multiple ways. As we become close to another person, we gain access to that person’s resources, perspectives and identities – this might include someone’s circle of friends, cooking skills, views on politics or region or popularity more generally – each of which can help us to achieve our own goals. People are motivated to expand the self, the reasoning continues, not only to work more able themselves but also because self explanation, particularly rapid expanding is exhilarating.

So falling in love feels good, this logic suggests, because it produce rapid self explanation. Passionate love might be terrific for starters, but the sustaining forces of the good long term relationship are less exciting, require more work and relationship are less exciting, require more work and have more to do with equality than with passion.