Psychology
Introduction
Social 1 Biology and Social Cognition - Attraction
Chapter 14, Passer Dr Jason Bohan
Are we social animals? Who’s attractive? Can evolutionary theory explain dating behaviour?
The need to affiliate
Defining attraction
Affiliation – the need to form social relationships Fear of interaction and evaluation can lead to social anxiety Failure to form friendships can lead to loneliness Extreme social isolation can be harmful:
Admiral Byrd and “wintering over” in the Antarctic Hospitalism (Spitz 1945) Feral children – Genie (Curtiss, 1977)
Attraction is the “power that makes one person feel positively about another”
(Hogg and Vaughan 1998)
Basis of friendship and sexual partners
Is physical appearance important?
Why is appearance so important?
Attractiveness and positive personality traits cluster This is termed the “halo effect” Attractive people are:
The importance of physical appearance in animals:
Long-tailed Wydah (Andersson 1982)
The importance of physical appearance in humans:Newborns prefer to look at attractive faces (Slater et al 1998) At 6 month can categorise faces as attractive (Ramsey et al 2004) Studies show that physical attraction is the most important factor in selecting a date (Walster et all 1966; Green et al 1984; Sergios & Cody 1985)
More likely to be judged as happy and successful
(Dion et al 1972)
More lenient sentences (Sigall & Ostrove 1975) Likely to receive higher grades (Landy and Sigall 1974) US films (Smith et al 1999)
1
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What is attractive?
Cross-cultural research suggests that “average” faces are more attractive
(Langlois et al 2000)
What is beautiful/handsome?
Desirable attributes:
symmetry clear skin, shiny hair & no visible deformities
Exaggerated ‘key’ gender facial
Social 1 Biology and Social Cognition - Attraction
Chapter 14, Passer Dr Jason Bohan
Are we social animals? Who’s attractive? Can evolutionary theory explain dating behaviour?
The need to affiliate
Defining attraction
Affiliation – the need to form social relationships Fear of interaction and evaluation can lead to social anxiety Failure to form friendships can lead to loneliness Extreme social isolation can be harmful:
Admiral Byrd and “wintering over” in the Antarctic Hospitalism (Spitz 1945) Feral children – Genie (Curtiss, 1977)
Attraction is the “power that makes one person feel positively about another”
(Hogg and Vaughan 1998)
Basis of friendship and sexual partners
Is physical appearance important?
Why is appearance so important?
Attractiveness and positive personality traits cluster This is termed the “halo effect” Attractive people are:
The importance of physical appearance in animals:
Long-tailed Wydah (Andersson 1982)
The importance of physical appearance in humans:Newborns prefer to look at attractive faces (Slater et al 1998) At 6 month can categorise faces as attractive (Ramsey et al 2004) Studies show that physical attraction is the most important factor in selecting a date (Walster et all 1966; Green et al 1984; Sergios & Cody 1985)
More likely to be judged as happy and successful
(Dion et al 1972)
More lenient sentences (Sigall & Ostrove 1975) Likely to receive higher grades (Landy and Sigall 1974) US films (Smith et al 1999)
1
You created this PDF from an application that is not licensed to print to novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)
What is attractive?
Cross-cultural research suggests that “average” faces are more attractive
(Langlois et al 2000)
What is beautiful/handsome?
Desirable attributes:
symmetry clear skin, shiny hair & no visible deformities
Exaggerated ‘key’ gender facial