The golden rule of solutions chemistry is "like dissolves like". These three words provide the guide for predicting solubility when dealing with "polar" and "non-polar" solvents (substances capable of dissolving other substances) and solutes (substances that are dissolved by solvents). One common example of this rule can be seen when trying to mix oil (non-polar) and water (polar). No matter how hard you try, water simply will not dissolve oil but if you put table salt (polar) in water, it dissolves very easily. This phenomenon is not only useful in predicting the solubility of solvents and solutes but also provide insight into human attraction.Attraction, many may argue, is a function of our experiences and social definitions but Dion (1973) found that children as young as three years old exhibit the ability to perceive attractiveness. Across cultures, there are strong "universal correlates of beauty" (Wikipedia - physical attractiveness):
- Physically Attractive Males have:
- Slim waists and broad shoulders (V shaped torso)
- Strong brow, high forehead and broad jaw (masculine features)
- Heights taller than their mates (1.1 times their height is preferred) and erect posture
- Physically Attractive Females have:
- Youthful appearances - full lips, clear, smooth skin, clear eyes, lustrous hair and good muscle tone
- Hour-glass figure - a waist circumference 70% of the hip circumference
- Heights shorter than their mates
- Symmetrical faces and high cheek bones, big eyes and a thin jaw
In psychology, there have been many experiments dealing with human attraction. One prevailing conclusion that resonates with the "like dissolves like" theme is that individuals find those who are genetically unrelated but have similar facial features more attractive than those with dissimilar facial features. According to Sappenfield and Balogh (1970), perceived attractiveness towards another person was highly correlated to the perceived similarity to oneself. Murstein (1972) conducted several studies showing that people find others in their same "level" of attractiveness attractive. These conclusions were supported by other studies conducted by Cavior and Boblett (1972), Curran and Lippold (1975) and Chambers et al. (1983). Hinsz (1989) found that people tend to marry people who look like themselves.
These findings should not come as a surprise since it is very reasonable that people are attracted to those who are similar to them. Aside from physical appearances, Byrne et al (1986) suggests that people are attracted to homogamous characteristics such as age, race, education, beliefs and values and this in turn will enhance attraction. Knox (1997) came to a similar conclusion that people prefer homogamous traits when dating and considering a spouse. Parents want their children to reflect their values and religious beliefs but if the parents have different value systems, it can become very confusing for children who usually emulate their parents' beliefs.
Many people including Paula Abdul believe that "opposites attract". Experimental research (check bibliography below) has shown that this catch phrase is best saved to describe magnets. Most people who use the phrase "opposites attract" to describe their relationship, don't realize that they probably have more things in common than they thought. Most of the time, couples may be superficially opposites (different hobbies and interests) but have very similar personalities and values. "Opposites attract" may apply to infatuations and relationships spawned from rebellion but as one matures and seek meaningful relationships, similarities dominate as "like dissolves like". As with all situations, it is possible to have a long term relationship with someone who is truly your opposite but it is probably ill-advised since it's almost always an invitation for trouble. Long term relationships are hard as it is, why make it even more difficult.
Another reason why "likes" attract is that they are familiar and thus more memorable. Psychologist David Perrett (2002) found that young men and women were attracted to faces of those most resembling their mothers and fathers, respectively. This basically means that a sense of familiarity is enough to cause attraction. This is further supported by anatomical research on the fusiform, special part of the human brain needed to recognize faces of family, friends and people we are familiar with. Those with a damaged fusiform cannot recognize anyone and in experiments, they are unable to discriminate between photographs of plain and beautiful faces! This attraction for the familiar goes to explain why most couples tend to favor their own ethnicities.
Just like non-polar solvents can undergo chemical substitutions/transformations to become miscible with polar solvents. People can and normally do change (article on Change) to become more similar to their significant others. Couples that have been together for a good amount of time will usually begin to adopt each other's mannerisms and demeanor causing them both to become more akin. It is almost as if they "dissolve" into each other with both having properties of the other person.
This "like dissolves like" attraction phenomenon is a good reason for the success of online dating websites who require its members to complete detailed personality profiles that is used for finding a "suitable" match. There are still many other layers, such as the "groupie effect" and the "sexy son hypothesis", to human bonding and attraction. Look forward to future articles dealing with these topics. In the interim, feel free to give your own insights into attraction and whether you think "opposites attract" or "birds of a feather flock together" in the comments section.
Recommended Readings: Looks: Why They Matter More Than You Ever Imagined by Gordon Patzer and Survival of the Prettiest by Nancy Etcoff
Bibliography
- Dion, K.K., (1973). Young children's stereotyping of facial attractiveness. Developmental Psychology, 9, 183-188.
- Knox, D., M. E. Zusman, and W. Nieves. (1997) College students' homogamous preferences for a date and a mate. College Student Journal, 31, 445-448
- Sappenfield, B. R. & Balogh B. (1970). Perceived attractiveness of social stimuli as related to their perceived similarity to self. The Journal of Psychology, 74, 105-111.
- Byrne, D., Clore, G., & Smeaton, G. (1986). The Attraction Hypothesis: Do Similar Attitudes Affect Anything? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 51, 1167-1170.
- Cavior, N. & Boblett, P. J. (1972). Physical attractiveness of dating versus married couples. Proceedings of the Annual Convention of American Psychological Association, 7, 201-202.
- Chambers, V. J., Christiansen, J. R., & Kunz, P. R. (1983). Physiognomic homogamy: a test of physical similarity as a factor in mate selection process. Social Biology, 30, 151-157.
- Curran, J. P., & Lippold, S. (1975). The effects of physical attraction and attitude similarity on attraction in dating dyads. Journal of Personality, 43, 528-
- Hinsz, V. B. (1989). Facial resemblance in engaged and married couples. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 6, 223-229.
- Murstein, B. I. (1972). Physical attractiveness and marital choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22, 8-12.
- Perrett, D. I., Penton-Voak, I. S., Little, A. C., Tiddeman, B. P, Burt, D. M., Schmidt N., Oxley, R., & Barrett, L. (2002). Facial attractiveness judgments reflect learning of parental age characteristics. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 269, 873-880.
5 comments:
This is a pretty useful and interesting post. A lot of students at my work library have this one assignment on writing how the perceptions of beauty changed through time. Pretty good to have more resources handy.
i lean towards the "like attracts like" school, and it seems to fit within the scope of dawkins' selfish gene theory. your article raises a few questions for me.
first, do people still favor attractiveness based on likeness over those that are perceived as "universal correlates of beauty"? (that might have been answered in the murstein paper and the subsequent supporting papers, but unfortunately i don't have ready access to them.) is it a matter where they actually find similar physical appearance to be more attractive or that they just feel they have a better chance of finding a mate in someone who is physically like them? based purely on gut reaction, i find that we'd still prefer likeness over the "universal correlates" a tough pill to swallow. i would imagine it would depend on how much their likeness deviated from the population mean.
second, how much does likeness in personality affect our attraction to someone else? are we willing to favor someone with more personality similarities and sacrifice the physical likeness? or is physical similarity preferred? when there's a conflict between the two, which wins out? perhaps it's a case where it's the physical likeness that gets us to initiate, but then as the relationship progresses, the personality similarities take on more weight. or perhaps it's just because we don't know the personalities when we first meet the person.
finally, what are the differences in attraction across the senses? what do we consider tactilely or aurally attractive and does it strongly correlate to what we consider visually attractive? and to take it one step further, to what degree does likeness play into it? for example, if i as a male had a fairly low and deep voice prefer a female with a lower pitched voice relative to other females?
clearly you've written a pretty thought-provoking article.
hanestagless, you posed some very interesting questions!
Likeness to self and universal correlates of beauty are variables in the equation of attractiveness. The studies show that there is a positive correlation between likeness and attraction. In terms of preferring someone that is more similar to you as opposed to someone that is more "classically" beautiful, I think it depends on each individual and their "weighting" of the various factors that cause attraction.
In regards to attraction across the senses, deep voices in men have been found to be universally attractive. As with preferring likeness in terms of the other senses, I think that there is some subconscious recognition of similarities that are hard to express in words since they are not brought into conscious thought. Someone with a lower voice might be attracted to someone with a lower than average voice but not know the reason why. There are many factors that can relate to attraction but I think visually is definitely the most prominent during any initial interaction. Mental stimulation (personalities) do come into play but are not usually explored until after the outward appearance gets a thumbs up. A caveat to this last statement occurs when friends begin to experience relationship attraction in which case other factors outside of the visual appearance takes precedence.
You've asked many discussion prone questions and my reply is definitely not the "right or wrong" answer. Hopefully others will chime in with their own stories and opinions on the matter.
another thought. our attraction to those that are physically like ourselves has probably emerged as an evolutionarily stable strategy (ess). the "universal correlates of beauty" may represent the ideal mate. however, the cost to compete for the few that are ideal might be so great that it out weighs the benefit. alternatively, we could gain a similar benefit with someone who is less ideal, but comes with less cost. this would account for both the development of a universal idea of what is attractive, but also explains why in the real world we choose those that are of similar likeness to ourselves.
though it's not in direct relation with your post, what seems most interesting to me is the interaction of biological and societal forces in attractiveness and mate choice. that we would have a subconscious affinity towards those that are similar to us would suggest strong biological overtones, however it would be naive to ignore the influence of society as to determing what is "beautiful", and at times in conflict what might be biologically preferred. it is tough for me to really say which or to what degree both affect our perception of classical beauty and our perception of attractiveness with regards to potential mates and spouses.
given my opening thoughts, i think that the biological influence has been especially prominent in our choice thus far. i think this has the potential to change as humanity seems to be driven more by culture and surviving society's artificial selection as oppposed to our ancestors who had to contend only with natural selection.
Your comments as usual are very well thought out and in-depth. I agree that biological influence (the desire to find a suitable mate) takes precedence over current cultural influences of attraction. Unlike culture which can change, our basic biological needs (mate and reproduce to further our genes) usually remain the same. Also I believe that many cultural definitions of beauty (wide hips on women) coincide with our biological needs. Perhaps as we become more advanced and our biological needs can be met without direct mating (maybe a proliferation of artificial insemination), the definitions of attraction may change drastically to meet our other not so biological needs. again, just my 2 cents.
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