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The Need to Belong : Evolutionary perspective
 For our ancestors, mutual attachments enabled group
survival; bonds of love can produce children whose
survival chances are boosted by the bonded parents
 Our close relationships dominate our thinking and
emotions
 Solitary and rejected, people become severely
depressed; we need other people fpr our emotional
well-being
 Loss of social bonds triggers pain, loneliness and
withdrawal
Ostracism (social rejection)
 This can be regarded as emotional abuse
 Leads to self-defeating behavior, aggression, anxiety
 Even Cyber- ostracism is hurting
 Social ostracism evokes brain response similar to that
triggered by physical pain.
What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction? Factors that help initiate attraction
 Proximity: Kindles liking (we like the familiar)
 Geographical nearness; functional distance
 Most people marry someone who lives in the same
neighborhood
 Interaction: enables people to explore their similarities
 Interaction permits people to perceive themselves as
part of a social unit


Availability
Anticipation of interaction also boosts liking
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Proximity
 Anticipation of interaction
 Mere exposure

Tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or rated more
positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them
 Exposure without awareness leads to liking
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Physical Attractiveness
 Attractiveness and Dating


Looks are a predictor of how often one dates
Looks influence voting
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Physical Attractiveness
 The Matching Phenomenon

Tendency for men and women to choose as partners those
who are a “good match” in attractiveness and other traits
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Physical Attractiveness
 Physical-Attractiveness Stereotype

Presumption that physically attractive people possess other
socially desirable traits as well
 First Impressions
 Is the "Beautiful is Good" Stereotype Accurate?
 Attractive people are valued and favored, and so many
develop more social self-confidence
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Physical Attractiveness
 Who is Attractive?

Whatever people of any given place and time find attractive
 Perfect average

Symmetry
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Physical Attractiveness
 Who is Attractive?

Evolution and Attraction
 Assumption that beauty signals biologically important
information
 Health
 Youth
 Fertility
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Physical Attractiveness
 Who is Attractive?


Social Comparison
 Contrast effect
Attractiveness of Those We Love
 We see likable people as attractive
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Similarity versus Complementarity
 Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together?


Likeness Begets Liking
Dissimilarity Breeds Dislike
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Similarity versus Complementarity
 Do Opposites Attract?

Complementarity
 Popularly supposed tendency, in a relationship between two
people, for each to complete what is missing in the other
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Liking Those Who Like Us
 Attribution

Ingratiation
 Use of strategies, such as flattery, by which people seek to gain
another’s favor
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What Leads to Friendship and
Attraction?
 Relationship Rewards
 Reward Theory of Attraction


Theory that we like those whose behavior is rewarding to us or
whom we associate with rewarding events
Influences on attraction:
 Proximity
 Attractiveness
 Similar opinions
 Mutual liking
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What Is Love?
 Passionate Love
 Emotional, exciting, and intense
 Expressed physically
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What Is Love?
 Passionate Love
 Theory of Passionate Love

Two-factor theory of emotion
 Suggests that in a romantic context, arousal from any source,
even painful experiences, can be steered into passion
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What Is Love?
 Passionate Love
 Variations in Love: Culture and Gender

Marriages for love versus arranged marriages
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What Is Love?
 Companionate Love
 Affection we feel for those with whom our lives are
deeply intertwined
 Occurs after passionate love fades
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What Enables Close Relationships?
 Attachment
 Our need to belong is adaptive



Parents and children
Friends
Spouses or lovers
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What Enables Close Relationships?
 Attachment
 Attachment Styles



Secure attachment
 Rooted in trust and marked by intimacy
Avoidant attachment
 Avoiding closeness
Anxious attachment
 Clinging, then indifferent or hostile
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What Enables Close Relationships?
 Equity
 Condition in which the outcomes people receive from a
relationship are proportional to what they contribute to
it


Long-Term Equity
 As people observe their partners being self-giving, their sense
of trust grows
Perceived Equity and Satisfaction
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What Enables Close Relationships?
 Self-Disclosure
 Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others

Disclosure Reciprocity
 Tendency for one person’s intimacy or self-disclosure to match
that of a conversational partner
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How Do Relationships End?
 Divorce
 Rates varied widely by country
 Individualistic cultures have more divorce than do
communal cultures
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How Do Relationships End?
 The Detachment Process
 Alternatives to exiting a relationship



Loyalty
 Waiting for conditions to improve
Neglect
 Ignore the partner and allow the relationship to deteriorate
Voice concerns
 Take active steps to improve relationship
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