Interpersonal attraction - Aggression, leadership - What attracts one person to another?

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INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION

AGGRESSION

LEADERSHIP

WHAT ATTRACTS ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER?

a) Similarity. For example similar backgrounds, ages, attitudes, beliefs and interests. The more they have in common the more likely a couple are to stay together.

b) Familiarity. The more a couple meet up the more attractive they become to each another. In a 1968 study, Zajonc showed his participants a large number of photographs. He found that there was a positive correlation between the number of times a photograph was shown and the attraction.

c) Physical Attractiveness. The 'halo effect' infers that people who possess certain qualities have other good qualities. For example, if they are pretty or handsome then they will be nice people.

The primacy effect means that when meeting people one is most likely to notice physical appearances first.

Social exchange looks at the rewards and the costs of being in a relationship. The rewards have to be greater than the costs. When one is taking up too many of the other person's resources, the relationship is not working.

Matching hypothesis. This is the idea that members of couples mostly match one another in degrees of physical attractiveness.

Evolutionary psychology looks at attraction in terms of survival of the species.

AGGRESSION

A definition

Aggression is regarded as anti-social behaviour and it is generally considered to be behaviour that harms or intends to harm someone or something. Aggression can be verbal as well as physical.

The Ethological Explanation

Ethology is the study of the behaviour of animals in their natural environment.

Konrad Lorenz (1966) called aggression the 'fighting instinct' and he believed that animals use aggression for:

a) survival

b) to gain food

c) to gain a mate

d) to protect their territory

Ethologists believe that aggression is dissipated in the following ways:

a) Threat gestures. These enable an animal to warn another animal that it is prepared to fight. For example, the animal might bare its teeth and its fur might stand on end. An horned animal will lower its head to point its horns. At this stage one animal might withdraw from the situation. If not, the next stage is

b) Ritualised fighting. This is a type of fighting that shows a stereotypical pattern for each species of animal. The fighting stops before any serious injury occurs. For example, antelopes will lock horns but will not gore each other.

c) Appeasement gestures. Appeasement gestures enable the animal to indicate submission to the other one. The gesture will show the animal's vulnerability. For example, with two fighting cats the loser will turn around and show its neck to the winner to stop aggression building up. Showing its neck puts the cat in a vulnerable position.

Lorenz suggests that these behaviours are innate eg behaviours that are not learned but are instinctive to us and which have evolved throughout the generations. Lorenz maintains that human beings possess this survival instinct and that we are warriors and we are likely to use aggression for survival.
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However, the subject becomes more complex when studying human beings because humans are potentially more deadly and dangerous. Moreover, chimpanzees will kill their own species - including their own offspring - and this weakens Lorenz's argument. One cannot adapt animal studies and apply them to human behaviour because there are too many variables and too many factors to take into account. In fact, social factors might be seen as more influential than innate factors when studying aggression.

The Biological Explanation

The biological explanation looks at the brain, hormones and chemicals. Studies show that brain damage can ...

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