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Factors affecting attraction - Coggle Diagram
Factors affecting attraction
Self disclosure
The revealing of personal information to another individual we like. Creates a sense of trust when the information disclosed is kept secret.
Social penetration theory Altman and Taylor
Gradually sharing information about each other can create a stronger connection. Relationships develop from superficial to intimate through a process of self-disclosure (breadth and depth)
Reciprocity - the more someone else discloses to you, the more you will disclose to them, buil
Gender differences: Women are regarded as more interested in personal information so are likely to be attracted to men who make personal disclosures.
Content of the disclosure - too much personal information could make people feel uncomfortable while low disclosures will not help attraction take place
AO3:
RTS: Sprecher and Hendrick (2004) conducted a longitudinal study on the relationship between self-disclosure and relationship satisfaction in married couples. They found a strong positive correlation between self-disclosure and satisfaction. Couples who engaged in frequent, deep self-disclosure reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction and perceived intimacy. This supports the self disclosure theory because it shows that self-disclosure is a key element for attraction.
Refuting evidence: Tang et al (2013) found that men and women in the USA tended to disclose more sexual thoughts and feelings than romantic partners in China; however, the level of relationship satisfaction was high in both cultures. This shows that self-disclosure is not a requirement for successful relationships in all cultures, making social penetration theory culturally bias.
Methodological issues: Most research is correlational, looking at just 2 factors of self-disclosure and relationship satisfication, but due to this we can not conclude that self-disclosure causes high levels of satisfication, but there is a relationship between the 2 variables. therefore this dueces the validity of self disclosure leading to attraction as therre may be other variables, like physical attractiveness or personality traits which cause attration.
Physical attractivness
In men, women seek signs of wealth, resources, strength, and security
In women, men seek signs of fertility, like a 0.7 waist to hip ratio
The halo effect
People who are deemed to be attractive tend to benefit more from favourable perceptions from society
The matching hypothesis
Walster et al - people will seek partners of similar physical attractiveness to themselves. Attempting to 'punch above your weight' carries the increased risk of rejection and infedelity
AO3:
RTS: Palmer and Peterson (2012) asked participants to rate attractive and unattractive people in terms of how politically competent and knowledgeable they believed them to be. Attractive people were consistentlyrated higher on these characteristics. This supports the halo effect theory because knowledge traits were judged based on attractiveness, and the idea of attractiveness also leads to attractive traits
Methodological issues: Palmer and Peterson asked participants to rate attractiveness which is very subjective. This means that not everyone would rate the same person in the same was as many people differ in traits the find attractive. Therefore this may reduce the validity of the halo effect's supporting research as it does not support psychology as a science as it fails to measure attractiveness in an objective way
Refuting research: Taylor et al (2011) found that, when studying mate choice preferences on a dating website, people tended to try to meet potential partners who were more physically attractive than them, seemingly not considering their own attractiveness level. This weakens the matching hypothesis, as it is not consistent with how men and women would be predicted to act. This refutes the matching hypothesis because when looking at real life people did not match themselves based on their own level of attractiveness as the theory suggests.
The filter theory
We do not have full access to all potential and available partners
Level 1: Similarity of social demographic variables
Level 2: Similarity in attitudes
Level 3: Complementarity
AO3:
RTS: Kerckhoff and Davis found that after couples completed a questionnaire, complementarity was important to couples who had been together for more than 18 months, and attitudes and values were more important to couples who had been together for less than 18 months. This supports the filter theory because the 3 areas the theory suggest we filter down to when finding someone attractive came out as the most important factors when couples were asked.
Methodological issues: Based on self report techniques. Kerckhoff and Davis' research included a questionnaire for couples to answer via self report. The issues with this method is that couples may distort the truth, especially if their partner is doing the questionnaire with them. Participants may also show socially desirable answers as they may think certain reasons being the most important factor are more acceptable, and therefore give these responses.
RTS: Taylor found that 85% of Americans who got married in 2008 were married to someone of their own ethnicities. This supports the filter theory because the idea of our social demographics being important in relationships has been shown in this statistic