Proximity affects attraction by increasing exposure, either through physical or functional distance being minimized. When individuals share a common physical environment, they are more likely to encounter one another. Functional features of the common environment also may foster exposure, such as group mailboxes, pathways, transportation, or workplaces. Either form of proximity provides greater opportunity for individuals to form attractions, and subsequent relationships; however, crowding and excessively frequent encounters with others can inhibit attraction (Fiske, 2004).
Similarity
Physical attractiveness tends to be a function of proximity, but is also a function of similarity. The similarity-attraction principle asserts that the primary predictor for liking another person is similarity to oneself. Similarity promotes cognitive consistency, and thus attraction. Balance theory asserts that people tend to prefer and infer affective, cognitive, and behavioral consistency in themselves and others. Fritz Heider described balance in a relationship as comprising harmony between the situation in which individuals encounter one another, and their feelings about the situation. Disharmony or imbalance in the situation tends to promote dislike between the individuals involved (Fiske, 2004).
Reciprocity
It can be said that humans feel more comfortable when surrounded by people that like them instead of people that do not like them. People like people that like them (Kenny, 1994). Mutual liking is the basis of reciprocity. However, the underlying motives for liking one another may not be the same, especially between the sexes. In general, friendly, positive behavior draws individuals to reciprocate friendly, positive behavior (Fiske, 2004).
The consonance of mood between individuals can promote mutual attraction. An individual in a good mood tends to be positive and friendly, which leads those they meet to reciprocate the behavior, leading to attraction. People also tend to like those who enhance their self-esteem, and feel rewarded by those who make them feel good, agree with them, and look good. People can be attracted to others who are present when they receive a positive, social reward, but people in unpleasant environments tend to find each other less attractive (Fiske, 2004).
Intimacy
Intimacy arises when partners in a relationship feel validated and understood by each other. Intimacy creates a close relationship between individuals, in which they interact with and influence one another over time, and often arouses strong feelings. Intimacy arises out of relying on one another (interdependence), attaining secure links to one another (attachment), and following social normative rules for the relationship (belonging).
Interdependence
Individuals cannot exist in isolation, no matter how strong their need for independence. In a relationship, what each person does affects the other person, leading to interdependence of goals and behavior. People can help or hinder each other’s outcomes through their behavior, which can arouse intense emotions.
Collaboration between individuals promotes the achievement of larger goals, which may benefit society as a whole, as well as the individuals involved. Individuals in a relationship expand their individual interests to include those of their partner, often resulting in a commitment to maintain the relationship (Fiske, 2004). Individuals in an interdependent relationship take account of each other’s needs and desires, value each other’s contributions, and work together to promote mutual happiness (Hadkins, 2008).
Interdependence arouses strong emotions that derive from each individual’s need to control their own goal outcomes, and trust the other member of the relationship to help (Fiske, 2004).
Intimate relationships generally proceed through several stages of interdependence: attraction, in which partners get to know one another; beginning, in which they become aware of the costs and benefits inherent in interdependence; and commitment, in which the interdependence is stabilized for the long-term. Alternately, when the partners fail to reinforce each other’s goals, the interdependence deteriorates, arousing negative feelings for one another, possibly leading to ending the relationship (Fiske, 2004).
Attachment
In a relationship, people become attached to one another through their interdependent need to belong together and trust one another. Attachment theory describes how children develop internal working models for relationships, based on their early interactions with their caregivers, and then carry these models into adulthood. Studies have consistently shown that the majority of people (56%) form secure attachments, leading them to feel good about themselves and others, thus promoting positive, successful relationships (Fiske, 2004).
However, the other 44 percent of people experience less secure attachment models, which can result in anxiety and avoidance of others. While preoccupied (anxious-ambivalent, 24%) people may feel personally unlovable or unacceptable, they still retain openness to relationships with others, trusting their good intentions. Avoidant people (20%) are uncomfortable with close relationships, falling into two categories—dismissing and fearful. Dismissing individuals tend to have positive self-evaluations, but view others as unworthy of a relationship with them. Fearful individuals avoid intimacy because they both feel personally unlovable, and are unable to trust other’s intentions (Fiske, 2004).
Attachment theory can provide useful insights for couple therapy. John Gottman (1995), a leading marriage researcher, believes that how couples interact with each other helps to determine how successful their relationship will be. He found that happy couples had a ratio of five positive interactions to each negative interaction. He suggests that in order to provide lasting effects for couples in therapy, therapists must help the partners increase positive affect, decrease negative affect, and resolve conflicts effectively (Gottman, 2000).
Attachment styles tend to perpetuate across generations, as the infants of unresponsive caretakers develop negative mental models for self and other in relationships, and these schemas and scripts then influence their adult interactions. Care giving tends to form the other side of the attachment model; how children are cared for creates their inner models of how to give care to others (Fiske, 2004).
Belonging
People tend to follow social norms in forming intimate relationships, to fulfill their core motive of belonging to the social group. People tend to believe that their own way of forming intimate relationships as better than other societies, reflecting their need to belong to the group (Fiske, 2004).
Relational models theory suggests that there are four, universal types of social relationships, reflecting different levels of belonging. In families, especially in childhood, communal sharing predominates, with few boundaries and sharing according to individual needs. In authority ranking relationships, such as work, school, and the military, position in the hierarchy controls boundaries and needs. In equality matching relationships, such as peer groups, individuals share resources in equal proportions. And in market pricing relationships, such as in customer-provider relationships, the individuals get what they pay for through bartering, money, trade, or other commerce (Fiske, 2004).
Aggression and Antisocial Behavior
Not all interpersonal relationships are positive; many interactions are antisocial or aggressive. Antisocial cognitive processes are thought to arise from negative modes of understanding, frustrated efforts to control others, or from protecting one’s self-esteem. Aggression describes any behavior conducted with the proximate (immediate) intent to harm another individual, even if the primary (ultimate) motive is different. People’s motives are often complex, and harm may be a means to another end, as instrumental aggression, or the primary goal, as hostile aggression (Fiske, 2004).
Social artifacts, such as media violence, alcohol and weapons can promote aggressive behaviors. Bandura’s cognitive learning model suggests that individuals learn aggressive behaviors in imitation (or modeling) of the behaviors they see and hear. Individuals can also learn aggressive behaviors vicariously through observing someone else being punished or rewarded (Fiske, 2004).
In one of Bandura’s experiments, young children watched a researcher be verbally and physically aggressive towards an inflatable doll. The children were subsequently left alone to play, and were observed to be aggressive toward the doll based on the behaviors they’d seen. Bandura’s conclusion was that children not only learned how to aggress, but also when it is socially acceptable (Fiske, 2004).
Cognitive scripts encode habitual behavior that can be strengthened by rehearsal, and then acted upon when accessible. Cognitive rehearsal of aggression then predicts, and is reinforced, by acts of aggression. Individuals develop aggression scripts that are matched against normative beliefs, which then act as a filter for behaviors considered appropriate and socially acceptable. When provoked, men are more likely to retaliate with overt aggression than women, who may retaliate with more covert forms of aggression. Tendencies toward aggressive and antisocial behavior tend to be stable across the lifespan of individuals, and even more stable across generations within families (Fiske, 2004).
The cognitive neo-association theory examines the reasons why people aggress. Transitory situations evoke people’s feelings and understandings, resulting in impulsive aggression, due to remembered associations with similar situations. Frustrations and other unpleasant conditions may provoke rudimentary fear or anger, which then activate cognitions and behaviors related to the fight-or-flight response (Fiske, 2004).
The general aggression model links affect, arousal, and behavior with knowledge structures, such as scripts and schemas, to evaluate individual episodes of aggression as a unit. Within an aggressive episode, the individual makes an automatic appraisal of the threats in the environment, as well as more controlled reappraisals. Aggressive inputs, such as personality and the situation, are then mediated via these appraisals to determine aggressive or non-aggressive responses. The general aggression model is compatible with other cognitive models of aggression, but reflects a more up-to-date understanding of social cognitive processes (Fiske, 2004).
Conclusion
Individuals exist within a social space of relationships with others. Through familiarity and similarity, individuals experience attraction to one another, and may develop a harmonious relationship when the attraction is reciprocated. If one of the individuals perceives the other’s behavior, or the situation itself, in a negative way, aggression may result. Many relationships are relatively superficial, and are of short duration.
Intimate relationships arise from continued, close contact between individuals, and result in a degree of interdependence on each other’s needs and behaviors toward achieving individual goals. Individuals learn how to relate to others through their initial attachments to childhood caregivers, which can then create patterns of attachment in adulthood. Ultimately, intimate relationships are driven by the need to belong.
Aggression and other antisocial behaviors may be learned in response to perceived threats by watching and imitating the behavior of others. Children develop aggression scripts through cognitive modeling and repetition, along with social constraints on when and how to enact them. Aggression, like pro-social behaviors, tends to follow cognitive models learned across the lifespan, intensify across generations, and predict an individual’s future behavior.
References
Fiske, S. T. (2004). Social Beings: Core Motives in Social Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Gottman, J. (2000). Marital Therapy: A Research Based Approach: Clinician's Manual, Seattle: The Gottman Institute, Inc.
(1994). Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and How You Can Make Yours Last, New York: Simon and Schuster.
Hadkins, E. (2008, September 9). From dependence to independence to interdependence, part 3. Retrieved on May 10, 2009, from .
Kenny, D. A. (1994). Interpersonal perception: A social relations analysis. New York: Guilford.
