Assess the extent to which psychological explanations and research have established the factors in interpersonal attraction

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“Looks are everything” – Assess the extent to which psychological explanations and research have established the factors in interpersonal attraction

There have been many differing explanations of the factors in interpersonal attraction. One such explanation is physical attraction, and it has been found that people who are more physically attractive enjoy a wide variety of benefits in a number of different societies. For example, Stewart (1980) found that in a courtroom, people who were more physically attractive got, on average, shorter sentences than those who were less attractive, supporting the assumption. Similarly, Landy & Segal (1974) found that essays were given a higher grade when a photograph of an attractive person was attached than when the same essay had a photograph of a less attractive person attached to it. The notion that attractive people are treated better than unattractive people is supported further by Stephan & Langlois (1984), who found that parents may treat attractive offspring better than others.

The effect of physical attraction may also affect the way people are perceived. Hunsberger & Cananagh (1988) found that students tended to rate attractive teachers as being nicer, friendlier and less punitive than others. This may be an example of the halo effect, whereby people interpret physical attractiveness as an indication of other positive features. Another study in support of this is that by Wheeler & Kim (1997), who found that Korean, American and Canadian students rated physically attractive people as being more sociable, happy, extroverted, friendly and mature. In addition, those from individualist cultures rated such people as being assertive and strong, and those from collectivist cultures rated them as being sensitive and generous (Markus et al., 1997). This is an indication of how the halo effect exists across cultures, but can differ in its interpretations.

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On the other hand, it may be possible to be too attractive. Segal & Ostrove (1975) found that females who were guilty of crimes related to their attractiveness got larger sentences, and Dermer & Thiel (1975) found that attractive women are judged as being egotistic and materialistic. This can be interpreted as the opposite of the halo effect.

Research such as the above has received criticism for relying in asking people to rate pictures of people to measure their attractiveness. This is very subjective and can vary immensely from individual to individual and from culture to culture, so ...

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