Discussion Of Interpersonal Attraction With Regard To Romantic Relationships

We experience interpersonal attraction when we emote the feeling of to love or to like another person, it can be defined as the power of the emotion of like or love we feel towards someone. Interpersonal attraction is established from the human nature of needing to belong, Baumeister and Leary (1995, p.522) stated that the need to belong is a "strong desire to form and maintain enduring interpersonal attachments." Interpersonal attraction can be present between anyone such as family members or friends, although within this essay I will focus on interpersonal attraction with regard to romantic relationships and what draws two people together. I am asked to uncover whether it is the characteristic of how a certain person looks that is the main

Murstein came to this conclusion after he conducted an experiment which included student couples in a stable relationship. During the experiment the level of physical attractiveness was measured in three different aspects: self-perception, perception of partner and appearance from judged photo. In his conclusion Murstein found that self-percepts and photo attractiveness play a vital role in the choosing of their spouse. For a relationship to work there must be a high level of intimacy within the relationship, both parties must feel physically attracted to one another. If one is not happy with the other 's appearance and does not find them attractive there will be a lack of intimacy and the relationship will not be long term. The evidence Murstein found would suggest that a person 's looks are essential for a long happy

They were self-perception, perception of patner and the look from a judged photo.
Matching Hypothesis: (323 words)
The concept of matching hypothesis was first introduced in 1974 by Berscheid. His theory revolves around the thought that we choose a spouse that we deem to be of equal attractiveness to ourselves. This is due to the social exchange theory, in which states that we are more attracted to and become romantically involved with individuals who have equal capability to benefit us. In oppose to this in 1966 Walster held a study in which the findings actually contrasted with those of the matching hypothesis. In this study using a "computer dance" participants were randomly pre-selected and went out on dates and afterwards they rated how attractive they found the other person to be. After half a year eighteen of the participants were questioned whether they had went on another date with the same individual. The results found that the women deemed thee most attractive went on a second date. This indicates that the men were more attracted to the most attractive women, without taking their own appearance into