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Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Lecture Notes
Chapter 3: Drawing People Together: Forces of Social Attraction
Chapter Outline
I. Attraction
A. Types of Attraction
1. Physical Attraction
a. Physical attraction occurs when we are drawn to someone because of their
looks, whether it is someone’s body, eyes, hair, attire, or other aspects of a
person’s appearance.
b. Using looks to judge character:
i. One reason physical attraction is such a powerful force, fair or not, is that
people use outward appearances to make judgments about people’s inner
character.
ii. The tendency of what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype or halo effect
leads people to believe physically attractive individuals are more likely to
succeed, be sociable, popular, intelligent, and competent than their less
attractive counterparts.
c. Skill extends into online world: In situations such as online dating or speed
dating, appearance cues such as overall attractiveness, height and weight are
the best predictors of whether we “like” or “swipe.”
2. Social Attraction
a. Although physical appearance is key for predicting initial attraction, when it
comes to making long-term connections, being socially attracted to someone
is more important.
b. Social attraction reflects the feeling that we want to spend time with
someone.
c. Initial research on attraction focused so much on physical appearance that
influence of communication on attraction was often ignored.
3. Task Attraction
a. Task attraction refers to our desire to work with someone to fulfill
instrumental goals, such as completing a project or making a presentation.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. While social attraction is connected to behaviors showing that a person is
engaging, warm, and fun, task attraction is associated with being behaviors
showing attentiveness and competence.
4. Sexual Attraction
a. Sexual attraction has been defined as the “motivational component of
human sexuality” that reflects desire to engage in sexual activity with
someone and typically is accompanied by feelings of sexual arousal in the
presence of the person.
b. Physical attractiveness is central: Social evolutionary theorists specifically
argue people’s attraction to particular physical traits is due to the genetic
drive to mate with the fittest person possible.
c. Women tend to be sexually attracted to men who are tall with broad
5. Chemical Attraction
a. Technology has allowed researchers to begin to focus on the biological and
neurological aspects of the attraction process. Our bodies, to some extent,
dictate to whom we are attracted.
b. Oxytocin is a chemical released naturally in our bodies that has earned the
name “the hormone of love” and the “connection chemical” because of its
effects on the attraction process.
c. Studies of high-OT mothers soon after birth showed that they were more
likely than low-OT mothers to gaze at the baby’s face, use baby talk, touch
B. Fatal Attraction
1. Qualities once attractive not desirable: Number of studies on fatal attraction
show that when the very qualities that draw us to someone eventually spell danger
ahead or lead to a relational breakup.
2. Being attracted to opposite wears out: In other words, being attracted to someone
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
4. Narcissism is a personality trait that involves a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity,
self-focus, and self-importance,” and is part of the “Dark Triad” personality.
II. A Framework For Understanding Attraction
A. Kelley argued that four general factors influence how we behave during interactions:
1. Personal qualities and preferences that we bring to the interaction.
2. Qualities of the other and preferences that they bring to the interaction.
III. Personal Qualities
A. Perceptions of Reward Value
1. When people enter relationships, they hope to obtain benefits or rewards, such as
companionship, affection, sex, fun, status, and even financial resources.
2. If a person is perceived as rewarding or attractive to someone, the person is in fact
rewarding or attractive. These perceptions being our own and may have no basis
in objective reality, reflect our personal preferences and biases.
B. Expectations
1. Influence perceptions of reward value: Numerous studies have shown that
people’s expectations of others play a large role in the attraction process.
2. People’s expectations determine what they notice as being unusual or usual,
which influences their attraction to others.
3. People’s expectations have a way of becoming reality, regardless of the other
5. The expectation of future interaction can have a positive impact on attraction.
C. Demographic Characteristics
1. Sex Differences
a. Research has shown that men are primarily attracted by looks, whereas
women are more often attracted by personality and Status due to evolved
evolutionary sex differences.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
b. Women appear more hesitant than men to report that physical attraction is an
important part of their selection process. Also, both sexes are both influenced
by physical attraction.
c. Nonetheless biology is strong and across all cultures men to overweight
2. Gender Differences
a. We need to think of everyone as varying on a continuum of masculine–
feminine qualities labeled as “gender orientation” or “sex-role orientation.”
Many men and women display a mix of feminine and masculine behaviors
and beliefs and are classified as androgynous.
b. Socialization affects behavior: Both men and women are attracted to others
who fit stereotypical gender roles.
c. Participants looking at dating profiles online were more attracted to those
3. Sexual Orientation and Age
a. Attraction process relatively similar:
i. Findings are in stark contrast to the belief held by some in our society
that those in the LGBTQ are more motivated by sexual interest than are
their heterosexual counterparts.
ii. Members of the LGBTQ community listed fun, sense of humor,
intelligence, kindness, and supportiveness as the top five attractive traits
in potential partners.
b. People show consistency regardless of age: People seem to find essentially
the same qualities attractive whether they are in their preteen or teen years or
in their 70s or 80s.
4. Relationship Beliefs
a. Influence who attract people:
i. Destiny beliefs are based on the idea that first impressions of others are
fixed and enduring and that people cannot change.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
b. Those who hold strong destiny beliefs are quick to discount someone whom
they see as less than an ideal partner. Conversely, they strongly pursue those
with whom they have a “perfect” first encounter.
c. Those who hold growth beliefs believe that relationships are always a work in
progress and require regular effort. As a result, “imperfections” in others are
not a “deal breaker” when it comes to attraction.
5. Personality
a. Our personalities influence the types of partners to which we are the most
attracted and are compatible.
b. If you are extraverted, you might look for a partner who is as social as you
are. If you are very shy, you might look for someone who is more outgoing,
but not to the extent to take you out of your comfort zone.
c. People with high self-esteem experience more attraction to others, especially
after experiencing a failure. Self-esteem also interacts with the situation
people are in.
d. People who have secure attachment styles see themselves and others
positively and tend to look for partners who are secure. They have high self-
esteem and positive attitudes toward relationships.
i. People who have insecure attachment styles either have low self-esteem,
negative attitudes toward relationships, or both.
ii. Sometimes people who have insecure attachment styles are attracted to
others who complement them in ways that might help them become more
secure.
e. Narcissism: Narcissists are attracted to others who admire them, while non-
narcissists are drawn to others who exhibit caring qualities.
i. Narcissists are more focused on the short-term rewards they get from
relationships, and therefore look for someone who provides them with
immediate admiration rather than long-term mutual liking.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
IV. Other People’s Qualities
A. Physical Attractiveness
1. Beauty is objective and is really “in the eye of the beholder” as the old saying
goes. Perception of good looking is influenced both by biology and by culture.
2. In other words, most people around the world agree, suggesting that there is a
biological basis for what is considered beautiful than transcends culture.
3. Body and facial symmetry: When two sides of a face or body mirror each other, a
person is rated as more physically attractive.
4. Body proportionality and golden ratio: The golden ratio of f (Phi), or 1:1.618, is
an index of attractiveness.
7. Facial neoteny and maturity: Faces are rated as more attractive when they are
characterized by a combination of baby like and mature features that represent
youth and sexuality, particularly for women.
8. Person’s own height key determinant:
a. Women show no interest in men who are shorter than themselves, and men
show no interest in women who are taller than themselves.
9. Throughout most of human history, heavier women were favored over thinner
women, but this has changed in industrialized countries where food is plentiful.
a. Spanish and Portuguese men showed more of a preference for curvier
women.
b. In North America and Europe, thinner women are preferred, but some African
countries see heavier women as especially attractive.
10. Preferences for coloring also vary on the basis of what is perceived as scarce in a
particular culture or co-culture, with dark skin and hair more prized in places
where light hair and skin is common and vice versa.
11. Personal preferences for coloring: Blond women were only contacted slightly
more than brunette women despite their relative scarcity.
13. Attractive people suffer objectification:
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. Attractive people are sometimes stereotyped in line with as having negative
personality characteristics such as being superficial, stuck up, and
promiscuous.
B. Communication and Personality
1. The Warm and Kind Cluster
a. Adjectives such as caring, agreeable, kind, and warm are often mentioned in
people’s lists of what makes others socially attractive.
b. Agreeableness refers to how “warm, caring, and altruistic” a person is and
often emerges as the best predictor of attraction.
2. The Sociable and Fun Cluster
a. Sociability refers to one’s ability to communicate easily among a group of
people. People who are extroverted, expressive, and communicate openly are
perceived as highly sociable.
b. Extraverted people tend to be popular and are perceived to be likable and to
like others. Having a fun, sociable personality is one of the top predictors of
attraction.
3. The Competent and Confident Cluster
a. Communicating without showing signs of nervousness and seeming
knowledgeable is typically viewed as competence, but people going out of
their way to seem knowledgeable, may be rated as unattractive.
b. Research has also shown that women are more attracted to dominant than
passive men.
c. Women want to feel protected, but they also want partners who make
sacrifices and invest considerable resources in the relationship.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
e. Distinguishing competence from likeability: Students were more attracted to
the lovable fool than the competent jerk, and that likability had 2 times as
much power than competence in predicting attraction.
C. The “Hard-to-Get” Phenomenon
1. Person acting hard perceived attractive: Men rated the woman they were told
would be moderately difficult to convince as most attractive. Playing hard to get
has its benefits but that it can backfire if the person is seen as unattainable.
2. Whether engaging in tasks or getting to know someone, people prefer those who
respond quickly enough to have real-time conversations with and who appear to
be putting effort into talking with them.
3. When someone plays hard to get we want them more but like this less so playing
hard to get may be both attractive and unattractive simultaneously.
4. We are most likely to be attracted to hard-to-get people if they are easy for us to
attract but difficult for others to attract.
V. Qualities of the Pair
A. Similarity: “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”
1. Attitudinal Similarity
a. People can have perceived similarity or homophily (thinking that they are
similar to the other person) or actual similarity (actually being similar to the
other person) or both.
2. Similarity in Communication Skills
a. What intrigued Burleson was not that very good communicators are attracted
to other good communicators, but rather that poor communicators are also
drawn to other poor communicators.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
d. “Sour grapes” explanation: People who have poor communication skills
may be painfully aware of their shortcomings in the social arena.
e. Skill-as-culture explanation: What some people consider to be poor
communication, others might actually see as effective communication.
3. Similarity in Physical Attractiveness
a. When one member of a romantic couple is much better looking than the
other, automatic assumption is that the less-attractive partner must have other
exceptional qualities.
4. Similarity in Musical Preferences
a. Music’s ability to foster human connection is part of its basic function, and
that attraction to others with similar musical preferences may have
evolutionary advantages for us.
b. People see others’ musical choices as indicators of their values so that
similarity in musical tastes seems to express similarity in values--stronger
than a mere expression of personality.
c. College students were more willing to adjust the music playing in their
apartment toward the preferences of someone for whom they had romantic
interest than someone for whom they did not.
5. Similarity in Names and Birth Dates
a. Using the notion of implicit egotism, several scholars have shown that we are
attracted to others based on similarity on most arbitrary things.
B. Complementarity: Sometimes Opposites Attract
1. Old saying that “opposites attract” can have some basis in truth and
complementarity seems to be a much better predictor of attraction and liking
when it is linked to behavior or resources.
2. When it comes to people’s core attitudes and beliefs, similarity seems to be much
more important than complementarity.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
C. Similarity and Complementarity in Initial versus Committed Relationships
1. Benefit of similarity for liking and attraction seems to hold primarily for high-
commitment couples.
2. Dissimilarity may be exciting for dating partners that people don’t see as long-
term mates.
3. Depend on goals for relationship:
a. If you hope for or are in a highly committed relationship with your partner,
then similarity seems to be a key ingredient to success.
4. The best relationships may be characterized by both similarity and
complementarity, with similarity in important attitudes and values sustaining
commitment, and complementarity sustaining excitement.
VI. Qualities of the Physical or Social Environment
A. Physical Environment
1. Room temperature, the presence of music, and even seemingly irrelevant
characteristics may influence whether people are attracted to one another.
2. Environmentally induced positive emotions get transferred to the interactants and
people unconsciously associate the feelings they experience in a particular
environment with the individuals who are part of that environment.
B. Proximity
1. Opportunity to meet and be attracted: Proximity is the lubricant that facilitates
liking, and with each encounter--whether by chance or not--there is a greater
likelihood of mutual attraction.
2. Major determinant among daters:
a. There is distance decay when it comes to proximity such that the farther you
live from someone the less likely you are to develop a relationship.
3. Proximity is a key predictor of whether people click on each other’s online
profiles and develop relationships.
Guerrero, Close Encounters, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
C. Social Environment
1. Common way straight couples meet: There are at least two reasons friends have a
big impact on attraction. They influence who we find attractive and they are
important in partner selection as we want their approval and admiration.
2. Not limited only to attraction: Once we get involved with someone, if that person
does not get along with our social network, it puts strain on the relationship.
