Although, if you follow this model completely, all you need to do is to dress up & get your ‘beloved’ into a potentially exciting situation (e.g. on a roller coaster) and (as long as they are Western) they should immediately fall in love with you, which doesn’t generally happen. Therefore, when you think of that the theory doesn’t seem to work that well. There must be other factors involved, so this is not a complete explanation. Another criticism of the theory comes from the idea of an ‘appropriate love object’. Culture tells us who is ‘appropriate’ i.e. similar age, opposite sex, similar ethnic and class groupings. So this model cannot explain why gay people find themselves attracted to members of the same sex, why people have ‘toy boys’ and ‘sugar-daddies’ or why some people might like ‘a bit of rough’ etc.
“Love on a suspension bridge” by Dutton and Aron (1974)
Attribution can play a powerful role in attraction. Specifically, misattribution of arousal can affect how attracted we feel toward another person. One very interesting field study of misattribution of arousal was conducted by Dutton and Aron (1974).
In this study, an attractive female or male experimenter approached men as they crossed either a high, rickety suspension bridge or a low safe bridge at a popular tourist site in North Vancouver, British Columbia. One of the bridges, the Capilano Canyon Suspension bridge is 5 feet wide, 450 feet long, and is constructed of wooden boards attached to wire cables that span a height of 250 feet. This bridge is not one for someone with a fear of heights. It wobbles as you walk on it and sways in the wind. Nearby there is another bridge that does not stimulate as much arousal, it is solidly built out of heavy wood and stands only 10 feet about a small, peaceful stream.
Whenever an unaccompanied male began to walk across either bridge, he was approached by a male or female assistant, who introduced themselves as a psychology researcher, and asked the men to write an imaginative story in response to a picture while standing on the bridge. The assistant also told the man that if he wanted to receive information about the study's results, he could just call them
Within this study there were 2 independent variables and 2 dependant variable...
- Arousal (suspension bridge vs. low secure bridge)
- Attractive object (“stunning” young woman vs. ordinary guy)
- TAT coded for sexual imagery
- % of subjects who call for “more information”
Dutton and Aron found that men who were approached by a woman on the suspension bridge told stories with the highest sexual imagery of all the experimental groups. These men were also more likely to call the assistant, regardless of sex, but the female research assistant got the most calls.
Dutton and Aron tried to eliminate the confounding variable of self selection, e.g. only single; more testosterone laden males would go on the higher bridge. They did this by only using the higher suspension bridge. Either the male or female approached people:
- Several minutes after they get off the bridge
- In the middle of the bridge
E valuation:
Kenrick & Cialdini suggested that the presence of others may calm us down. The men in the bridge studies may have liked the “stunning” young woman because they associated her with a reduction in fear or anxiety. They saw the woman as someone else in their predicament of being on the bridge so there was less fear to feel. Although the woman/man could have caused more fear in the participants because they were keeping them there, on the bridge, longer than necessary.
Their experiment relied upon ‘Thematic Apperception’ (not everybody agrees that interpreting a picture really gives insight into someone’s unconscious desires). There were ethical problems (invasion of privacy, deception, lack of informed consent…). There were alternative explanations (single, testosterone laden males were more likely to venture up to the high bridge etc…). The experiment takes no account of the possibility that some of the men involved were gay.
Kenrick and Cialdini (1977)
White, Fishbein and Rutstein (1981)
White et al. (1981)
In 1977, Kenrick and Cialdini criticized Dutton and Aron’s experiment and reported four failures to replicate the study, one exact replication and three with minor variations. Their criticism was that people could not misattribute negative arousal (the scary bridge) for positive arousal, which was the attractive woman (Kenrick & Cialdini, 1977). On the other hand, an experiment done by White, Fishbein, and Rutstein (1981) on passionate love and the misattribution of arousal confirmed Dutton and Aron’s findings. In this experiment, White and his colleagues had male participants listen to tapes that were either positive (comedy tape) or negative (mutilation tape), while other subjects heard a non-arousing tape (textbook excerpt). After listening to the tapes, the participants were exposed to either attractive female confederates or unattractive female confederates. The results for this experiment showed that the men who listened to the arousing tapes (both positive and negative) reported liking the attractive confederates more and the unattractive confederates less than the men who listened to the non-arousing tapes (White et al. 1981). These findings suggest that positive and negative arousal can both be misattributed as positive arousal (White et al. 1981).
There is lots of interesting scientific theory, which all backs each other up and supports to idea of the high physiological arousal on misinterpretation of physical attraction. As you can see from above there is lots of evidence from different sources.
But this whole area of research is flawed. Purely because all of the studies are andocentric – they are all testing the responses of men. Surely if men do this then women do it as well?
All the studies say that males interpret a high physiological state of arousal as physical attractiveness. I am going to test this out in females. To see if females will misinterpret the high physiological arousal in the same way.
I aim to find out if females aged 16 and over are affected by physiological arousal when rating a randomly selected group of males, aged 18 to 25.
In order to accomplish this aim I am going to:
- Get 2 boards of pictures, each with 6 pictures of males of varied attractiveness
- Get 20 females volunteers, aged 16 and over
- Randomly allocate to 2 groups
- Take pulse rate for 30 seconds
- Group 1 rate board one, group 2 rate board 2
- Do an hour’s worth of physical exercise, in a Physical Education class
- As soon as finished, Group 2 rate board one, group 1 rate board two
- Take pulse rate for 30 seconds
H1: When asked to rate pictures of males for physical attractiveness, female students aged 16 and above, will rate males significantly more highly, on a likert scale of one to ten (ten being the most attractive), when in a state of higher rather than lower physiological arousal brought about by 30 minutes of physical exercise.
H0: When females, aged 16 and above, are asked to rate pictures of males for physical attractiveness, on a likert scale of one to ten (ten being the most attractive), there will be no significant difference between ratings when in a state of higher rather than a lower physiological arousal brought about by 30 minutes of physical exercise. Any difference is due to chance.
My H1 hypothesis is an experimental hypothesis. This means I am using experimental research methods and am changing an independent variable. It is a directional hypothesis.
(EXPLAIN THIS) –
- Field experiment with repeated measures
- DESIGN
-
12 pictures of males were found on a social networking site, , used for rating pictures of others and meeting people.
- All the pictures are face shots
- Six of the pictures were randomly selected for board one
- The other six pictures were stuck onto board two
- 18 females students volunteered to participate in the experiment.
- They were all from a Year 11 Physical Education class
- Students were asked to sign a consent form, as well as their teachers, to say that they agreed to participation in the study.
- The teachers were able to do this as they were in the position of loco parentis
- The volunteers were randomly allocated to two groups
- Answer sheets were given out to each volunteer in each group
- The volunteers were asked to take their pulse rate for 30 seconds and record them on their answer sheets
- Group one were given Board one to rate first, while Group two were given board two
- Both groups then had to participate in 30 minutes worth of physical exercise
- There was a variety of activities available:
- Trampolining
- Hockey
- Rowing
- Basketball
- Volleyball
- Badminton
- After 30 minutes, the females were asked to take their pulse rates again and record it on the answer sheets again
- The volunteers then had to rate the other picture boards
- Ratings of the pictures should have increased after the females had done physical exercise
All of the pictures were from a rating website called .
These pictures were all put on the website to be rated, therefore I was able to use them without getting written consent, as I am using them for their original purpose.
By getting two groups to rate the pictures at separate times, I am cancelling out any confounding variables as the pictures are only being rated against themselves rather than against each other.
The data was analysed for average statistical significance difference using a sign test. This was chosen because the study was looking for a difference in attractiveness ratings given before and after exercise. The data are related as they represent repeat ratings for the same pictures, and the data are non numerical as they come from a subjective rating scale.
Any difference was to be considered at statistical significance is there was less than 5% possibility of the results occurring by accident (P=<0.05)
Sign Test
When N=11, to be statistically significant at p=<0.05, X must be equal to or lower than 1. Here X=3,
When N=11 the critical value=1 X is greater than 1, so there is no statistical significance in attractiveness ratings given before and after exercise.
So the NULL hypothesis that is “When females, aged 16 and above, are asked to rate pictures of males for physical attractiveness, on a likert scale of one to ten (ten being the most attractive), there will be no significant difference between ratings when in a state of higher rather than a lower physiological arousal brought about by 30 minutes of physical exercise. Any difference is due to chance” is accepted and the experimental hypothesis is rejected.
My results from the statistical sign test show that the results gained from the experiment are not significant therefore I must accept my null hypothesis which states that:
“When females, aged 16 and above, are asked to rate pictures of males for physical attractiveness, on a likert scale of one to ten (ten being the most attractive), there will be no significant difference between ratings when in a state of higher rather than a lower physiological arousal brought about by 30 minutes of physical exercise. Any difference is due to chance.”
The data shows that there are many reasons for why some of the results have gone up, some have gone down and some are the same. It could be a number of things.
All of the past research studies are andocentric, done on men, my rationale for doing this study was to see if the same rules applied to females. The data I collected show that this is not so. There are a number of reasons why this could have been; perhaps females look for something other than physical attractiveness. The study that I performed was most valid. This is because is used a simple likert scale rather than complicated Thematic Apperception Tests. The TAT’s cannot be analysed very easily as you have to search for different sexual contents, which could be different for different people. A simple likert scale is easily analysed.
All of the pictures were rated twice, by different people but they were all done twice. The pictures each had a rating score for before and after physical exercise. This means there were no order effects and no learning; Counter Balancing.
The findings of my research show that females may look for something more than just physical attractiveness in males. Also it shows that females aged 16 do not yet have the adult ideas to choose someone they like for more reasons that just physical attractiveness, and to not be affected by what everybody else thinks of a certain person. For example, one of the participants could have really liked one of the males from the pictures but because they heard everyone around them rating the picture low, they didn’t want to seem the odd one out so rated them as others did; Social Desirability.
Further research that could be done from this study:
- Does the idea work on older females?
- Does the idea work on males aged 16?
- Will there be different results in a more multi-cultural society?
- Will treating the experiment like an exam with no conversation in between produce different results?
19th November 2008
Searched for : love on a suspension bridge
Used:
This is a powerpoint presentation.
19th November 2008
Searched for: Dutton and Aron
Used:
7th December 2008
Searched for: misattribution of arousal
Used:
(powerpoint)
10th December 2008
Accessed pictures for boards
N=11 X=3