Social Psychology: The Role of Attraction.

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Amber Lee

February 25, 2003

Mr. Crane - Psych I

Social Psychology: The Role of Attraction

        In determining our friends and partners, society's influence, along with our own values for attraction, play an important role. There are varying levels of attraction, which determine the types of relationships people share. The four general factors that contribute to attraction and determine the strength of a relationship are physical attractiveness, proximity, similarity, and reciprocity.

Physical attraction is an important dimension of forming an impression of someone. Studies show that we are inclined to think negatively or dislike individuals who are unattractive, and more likely to overlook or pardon the faults of one who is more physically attractive. In an experiment done by Karen Dion (1972), women were given reports with attached photographs of severe classroom disruptions by elementary schoolchildren. The subjects tended to blame the disruptive behavior on the children who were unattractive, saying that it was easy to see that they were "brats." On the other hand, beautiful children were easily excused and received no such comment. A similar experiment was done by Berscheid and Walster (1972), in which college students were shown photographs of attractive, average, and unattractive students, and asked them the rate the people in their photos on 27 personality traits. As expected, the attractive people received the most positive ratings, reflecting how judgements are made on the basis of attractiveness.

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        In society, people who are perceived as being physically attractive are also often viewed as more intelligent, more popular, and more successful. This is described as the halo effect, a social perception that occurs unconsciously. Research shows attractive people also have more occupational success and more dating experience than those less attractive. The reason attractive people seem to achieve more in life can be explained by our habit to categorize others before having an opportunity to evaluate their personalities, based on cultural stereotypes which say all attractive people possess good personalities and all ugly people must be inherently bad. Cunningham ...

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