Discuss interpersonal attraction

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Discuss interpersonal attraction.

Physical attractiveness often has the major influence on initial attraction. Walster et al carried out a blind date involving more than 50 students and found that the more physically attractive a person is, the more liked he/she is. These people tend to have similar features that are often widely agreed to be attractive. Feingold concluded it is due to the halo effect that people attribute positive stereotypical characteristics to physically attractive people and so more attracted to them, thus more likely to start relationship. He illustrated such claim by his research which found that over 70% of his participants agreed that physically attractive people are said to be sexually warmer, more sociable and skilled. Yet, people tend to agree each other about attractiveness. Cunningham reported women who have features such as big eyes and small chins have high rating for attractiveness when male participants are asked to rate women photos.

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However, such “beauty” ratings may not apply to the whole world as people in different cultures have diff. values and may have diff. views towards “beauty”. Indeed research has shown this is not true. Roggmann replicated Cunningham’s study in other cultures (e.g. Korea & USA) and found similar traits are rated. Furthermore, even similar characters such as more sociable and friendly are attributed to these attractive people (Kim).

The claim that physical attraction is important in the initial attraction due to halo effect leads us to expect physically attractive people gain many advantages in situations where people meet the ...

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