Social psychology has established that the two most obvious characteristics (psychical attractiveness and personally) are influential in our choice of romantic partners and even in our choice of friendships.
Another explanation of interpersonal attraction is the evolutionary explanation. It is said by evolutionary psychologists that men and woman originally faced quite different adaptive problems in our ancestral environment and as a result of that they evolved different mechanisms to over come these problems. These mechanisms are still active today, unconsciously guiding mating choices between men and woman.
Evolutionary explanations of behaviour are based on the assumption that trends in behaviour can be accounted for by genetic predisposition. Most people agree on who is attractive in terms of mate selection, the evolutionary psychologist argue that this is because we have inherited a preference for reasons to do with survival of our genes.
Evolutionary explanations consist of the evolutionary significant characteristics, this means the trait that make a person attractive to the opposite sex. Men seek signs of reproductive values, so this relates to age and health status, this is indicated through a woman’s skin, teeth and all over physical appearance. The same applies for women, woman should be attracted to males who have characteristics that indicate social and economic advanages. They also look for males that will be protected and provided for (vaulable resources etc) Research has also to find out that woman prefer men who are humorous and “kind”.
Both sexes look for partners with Good Genetic Quality in order to ensure that their offspring have a good survial rate., so for example a woman will look for a mate who will support them and will take responsibility, and males will look for a mate that is reproductively capable(fertile) this is normally shown through youthfulness.
Other research that relates to evolutionary explanation are the Waist-hip ratio (Singh 1993). He demonstrated that men prefer woman who display a low waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, this appears to be the case across many cultures and time. A small waist can be taken to indicate absence of pregnancy which suggests youth and also is associated with high levels of oestrogen and low levels of testosterone, both linked to high fertility. The sign of pregnancy is an enlarged waist, this means as females age and as a result of pregnant, abdominal muscles stretch and there waist measurements increase, and also a waist measurements of over 32’ indicate a risk of cardiovascular disease, which would be perceived as a woman with poor health so males are less likely to be attracted.
Other related research was conducted by Cunningham (1986), he tested interpersonal attraction on beauty. He asked men to rate photographs of women and his findings were supported across cultures by Langlios and Roggman (1990). His research concluded that attractive features in woman were large eyes, high cheekbones, small nose and a big smile.
