Factors Affecting Attraction And Partner Preferences

Question 1

What is a key factor in attraction?

Answer 1

Physical attractiveness

Question 2

What does it mean to have physically attractive features?

Answer 2

Symmetrical faces (honest signal of genetic fitness)

Faces with neotenous features (trigger a protective / carrying instinct)

Question 3

What is neotenous and give examples.

Answer 3

Baby-face hypothesis

I.e:
Widely separated and large eyes
Delicate chin
Small nose

Question 4

What have psychologists found attractive for females and give examples.

Answer 4

Childlike

I.e:
Large and widely separated eyes
Small nose and chin
Wide cheekbones
Narrow cheeks

Question 5

What have psychological found attractive for males and give examples.

Answer 5

Mature

I.e:
Square jaw
Small eyes
Thin lips

Question 6

What is the halo effect?

Answer 6

Distinguishable features has a disproportionate influence on our judgements of other attributes

Which means good looking = ‘better’ people

Question 7

What do people think when they see a good looking person?

Answer 7

They are:
Kinder
Stronger
More sociable
More successful

Question 8

What did Dion et al (1972) say?

Answer 8

He coined the phrase ‘what is beautiful is good’

Question 9

What is the matching hypothesis (Watson 1966)?

Answer 9

Choose roughly similar physical attractiveness

Realistic judgment of our own value to a potential partner

Question 10

Not as attractive as us -

Answer 10

Settling too much

Question 11

More attractive than us -

Answer 11

Aiming too high (likely to get rejected)

Question 12

On the whole, physical attractiveness is asserted to be the…

Answer 12

most important factor in romantic relationships and attractiveness.

Question 13

Taylor et al (2011)

Answer 13

Studied activity logs of a popular online dating site

Measured actual date choices

Found online dater’s sought meeting with people who were more physically attractive than them

Question 14

Feingold (1988)

Answer 14

Carried out a meta-analysis of 17 studies

Found a significant correlation in ratings of attractiveness between real romantic partners

Question 15

Towhey (1979)

Answer 15

Male and female p.p rated an individual based on their photograph and biographical information

Completed MACHO scale questionnaire (measuring sexist attitudes and behaviours)

Found scoring high = more influenced by physical attractiveness

Question 16

Palmer and Peterson (2012)

Answer 16

Physically attractive people were rated as more politically knowledgeable and competent than unattractive people