Affiliation and Attraction Flashcards
(48 cards)
What is affiliation?
The act of associating or interacting with one or more individuals
A need to feel a sense of involvement and belonging within a social group
Why do we affiliate with others?
- We are social creatures
- Helps us to strive and reproduce by providing us with a network of support that will help us in our time of need
Differences in our desire to affiliate
Intrapersonal differences - desire to be with others can fluctuate over time and in different contexts
Interpersonal differences - some people have stronger desires to affiliate than others
Models of intrapersonal differences in affiliation
- Privacy regulation theory
- Social affiliation model
Privacy regulation theory
- Altman, 1975
- Our ideal level of privacy fluctuates over time
What influences the privacy regulation theory?
- The dialectic principle, people can vary in their desire for privacy/social interactions in a matter of hours
- Optimisation principle, people try to match their desired level of social interaction with their actual level of social interaction
Social affiliation model
- O’Connor & Rosenblood, 1996
- We operate according to the principle of homeostasis
- We control our level of contact with others to keep it stable, and as close as possible to our desired level
Interpersonal differences in affiliation
- Biological explanations
- Cultural explanations
Biological explanations of interpersonal differences in affiliation
- Brain imaging studies have shown that social interactions produce greater arousal of the central nervous system in introverts than extroverts
- Introverts may avoid social interaction to stop arousal levels becoming uncomfortable
Cultural explanations of interpersonal differences in affiliation
The more individualistic a country is, the more its members desired affiliation (USA vs China, Korea and Japan)
Problems with affiliation
Social anxiety
Loneliness
Social anxiety
The experience of negative emotion due to the fear of negative interpersonal evaluation
Loneliness
The absence of social contact
Socially anxious individuals are more likely to to ____ and _____ negative feedback, and therefore may behave in nervous and uncomfortable ways, resulting in them receiving negative feedback.
- Notice
- Internalise
Loneliness is due to poor ____ interactions rather than _____
- Quality
- Low quantity
Interpersonal attraction
The evaluation one person makes of another along a dimension that ranges from strong liking to strong disliking
Factors that influence attraction
- Target-centred determinants - what is it about other people that makes them attractive?
- Perceiver-centred determinants - how do our own subjective experiences or feelings shape who we find attractive?
Target-centred determinants of attraction…
Four key factors…
- Physical characteristics
- Similarity to self
- Complementary characteristics
- Reciprocity
Physical characteristics
- Waist to hip ration of 0.7 (youthfulness, health, fertility)
- Facial symmetry (physical health and lack of genetic defects)
- Average faces (prefer faces which represent the average)
- Facial maturity (females somewhat immature, men mature = attractive)
Dion, Bershied & Walster (1972)
Attractive people were assumed to have more socially desirable personalities (successful, dominant, intelligent, good social skills)
Landy & Sigall (1974)
Male participants gave better grades to the attractive student than the unattractive student
Feingold (1992)
Meta-analysis of over 90 studies found no relationship between physical attractiveness and intelligence, dominance, self-esteem or mental health
- But attractive people were found to be less socially anxious and less lonely
Why are attractive people less lonely and less socially anxious?
- Self-fulfilling prophecy
- Someone’s beliefs about another person can cause that person to behave in a way that confirms that expectation
- As such attractive people are more confident and have better social skills as people they interact with treat them as such
Similarity
- We like people similar to us
- Matching hypothesis - we tend to prefer people who are similar in physical attractiveness
