A couple of weeks ago, my son treated me (with my money!) to a play titled, “The Philanderer”, written by George Bernard Shaw. The play was very enjoyable: full of wit, charm, humour and provocation. Shaw is famous for defining love as a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
One consideration which I hadn’t really turned my mind to concerning the 'chemistry of love and attraction' was something my friend with a Ph.D. in Psychology said in passing quite some time ago: he said that 'familiarity' is one of the underpinnings of attraction and also of how people actually end up getting together as romantic partners. It’s not everything, of course, but has been found to be an important underlying consideration that people use in order to determine the attractiveness and desirability of a potential mate.
Let me illustrate the point. In one study, researchers brought together a group of women. Each of the women was to attend different classes at the University of Pittsburgh. The women were told not to speak during the lectures; nor could they interact with any of the students. The number of classes that each woman attended varied: 15, 10, 5 or none. At the end of the course, students from the class were shown photos of the women and asked what they thought of them. The women who were judged most attractive were those who had attended class 15 times. The least attractive women were the ones the students had not seen. This small study fits within countless others on the “mere exposure” effect: people like what they are familiar with. This could be deemed to be quite rational when you think about it, as it usually gives rise to notions of safety. This could explain the appeal of the ‘girl or boy next door’: safety and attractiveness through ongoing exposure. It could also be part of the reason why office romances are so prevalent and why friendships often progress to romantic involvement.
Somewhat related is another study. Researchers had people rate the photographs of classmates in their yearbooks according to how much they liked them and how attractive they felt they were. They then had strangers rate the photos for attractiveness. The ratings by the strangers did not match the ratings by the classmates. The ratings of the classmates were swayed by how much they liked each person – supporting the saying that there is more to being good-looking than looking good.
Another study found that strangers who were smiling were more attractive than those with a neutral expression.
In addition, people tend to be on the lookout for partners who are smart, faithful and kind. In the largest study ever conducted of human mate preferences, which looked at people from 37 cultures, the most important factor for men and for women was found to be kindness. Interesting...
D.
Most of this article was adapted from an article which appeared in a special edition of Discover magazine: The Brain (Fall 2010). The article, “The Rules of Attraction”, can be found commencing at page 30 of the edition. What I’ve written above is merely a small sampling of what factors may attract us in our desire to mate. Some factors cannot be clearly defined as they are factors beyond our conscious awareness and basically boil down to: “I just feel so good when I’m with you”.
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