Interpersonal Attraction In Relationships

Interpersonal attraction is the attraction between people which leads to friendships and romantic relationships. Psychologists say that there are many factors as to why we like and form friendships with the people we do and as to why we love and form romantic relationships with the people we do. These factors have been proven time and time again by psychologists conducting various experiments. Some of these factors, which i will talk about, for example, are the proximity effect, repeated exposure effect, similarity and physical attractiveness. I will also be mentioning the experimentation methods that were used to prove these factors, for example, Moreland and Beach, and the Framingham Heart Study. Both personal characteristics and setting

According to Hart, Ottati and Krumdick political candidates who are considered physically attractive are evaluated more favourably by voters than unattractive candidates (2011). It is widely believed that physical attractiveness plays a key role in the creation of new relationships. The way a person looks is the first thing you notice about them, before you come to know their personality and character and looks can be the reason you begin contact or not. Generally in new relationships, people are matched according to their physical attractiveness, and the more attractive their partner is, the happier the person in the relationship is. Overall, physical attractiveness has a positive effect on relationship (A Lofty Existence, 2011). We have seen the importance of proximity, similarity and physical attractiveness all come together as the main reasons behind why we form friendships and relationships but actually forming friendships is based on our “need to affiliate”. This is a very important factor because in order to form friendships we have to feel the need and want to do so. People who want to form friendships generally laugh a lot and remain physically close to others, they avoid making negative comments towards others and are more likely to be described to others as

I first talked about the proximity and repeated exposure effect and explained that the more a person is in contact with you and gets to know you the more likely that you will form a friendship or relationship. I also mentioned that if you want to attract someone you should spend more time with them and interact with them. In the next paragraph I talked about similarity and the biological basis to friendship. I discussed how people who have more similarities are drawn to each other and are more likely to form a friendship or relationship than those who have less in common. In the last paragraph we saw the importance of physical attractiveness and the “need to affiliate”. I discussed how physical attractiveness is the first thing you notice about a person and generally how partners are matched according to their attractiveness. The last thing i discussed was the importance of the “need to affiliate”. The person must show some desire to want to form a friendship or relationship with the other person for it to work. To sum up, we form friendships and relationships based on our proximity, similarity and how physically attractive we find another