Chapter 11
Attraction and Exclusion
I’m starting to like you more and more.
© 2014 Wadsworth Cengage Learning
Chapter Topics
 The Need to Belong
 Attraction: Who Likes Whom?
 Rejection
Attraction and Exclusion
 Attraction
 Anything that draws two or more people together
 Social acceptance
 People like you and include you in their groups
 Rejection (social exclusion)
 People exclude you from their groups
The Need to Belong
 Is the desire to form and maintain close, lasting
relationships with other individuals.
 Failure to satisfy the need to belong leads to
significant health problems, up to and including a
higher risk of death.
 Belongingness as a Basic Need
Has Two ingredients
1.
Regular social contacts with others
2.
Ongoing relationship characterized by mutual
concern
Tradeoffs: Testosterone
A Blessing and a Curse
 Testosterone: hormone associated with masculinity
 Testosterone is a mixed blessing
 High testosterone men are more exciting, but less
reliable
 Testosterone is better suited for finding mates than
maintaining stable families
 Testosterone peaks around age 20 and declines
thereafter
 Testosterone drops in new fathers
Best Friends, Lovers, &
Groups
 Some can satisfy the need to belong by belonging to
a group or an organization.
 Why is belonging a need, rather than a want?
 What are some of the side effects of not belonging?
 How can belonging to a group satisfy the need
when friends can’t?
 Why do you think this works better for men than
women?
Attraction: Who Likes
Whom?
 Ingratiation
 What people actively do to try to make others like
them
 Similarity
 Common and significant cause of attraction
Attraction: Similarity
 Spouses tend to be close to each other in IQ,
attractiveness, education and socioeconomic status.
 Matching hypothesis – is the proposition that people
tend to pair up with others who are equally attractive.
 Attraction to similar others may lie in evolution and
something related more to being social animals than
cultural animals.
 How does self-monitoring impact the way people
socialize?
 High self-monitoring: maximize each social situation
 Low self-monitoring: interest in permanent connections and
feeling
Attraction: Similarity
(cont’d.)
 In what ways are couples usually similar?
 How does similarity in attractiveness predict the
course of the relationship?
 What is the matching hypothesis? How does it
predict relationships?
 Why are people attracted to similar features in
others?
 How can evolution explain similarity in attraction?
Attraction: Similarity
(cont’d.)
 As cultures progress and form large, complex
groups, how does attraction change?
 Which group needs dictate the way people seek new
members?
 Does this change the way people seek friends and
lovers? Why or why not?
Attraction: Social Rewards
Reinforcement theory
 We tend to like the people that make us feel good.
 Who do nice things for us and praise us
 How does doing favors for someone make them like
you?
 How does praise inform attraction?
Attraction: Reciprocity
 How does reciprocity impact attraction?
We like those who like us, and trust promotes
expectation of reciprocity.
 What are the differences in reciprocity in
friendships versus romantic relationships?
 How do people respond to unwanted attraction from
another person?
Attraction: Exposure
 What is the propinquity effect? How does it impact
people?
 How can the mere exposure effect explain the
influence of propinquity on attraction?
Familiarity and Exposure
 Why do familiarity and shared experiences promote
liking?
 How can evolution explain why familiarity promotes
liking?
 What is the social allergy effect?
 How does it compare to the propinquity effect?
Looking Good
 What is the “what is beautiful is good” effect? How does
it relate to attraction?
 How is attractiveness measured?
 What do women find attractive in men?
 What female body types do men find attractive?
 How does body shape influence attractiveness?
 How do cultural norms sway opinions about attractiveness
and body types?
The Social Side of Sex:
What Is Beauty?
 Beauty in women is linked to being a good mate and
partner; therefore, young and healthy is more attractive
 Symmetry is a powerful source of beauty
 Typicality is a source of beauty
 Average or composite faces are more attractive than
individual faces
Attraction in the
Century
st
21
 How have dating customs changed throughout the
centuries?
 How are dating customs different across cultures?
 How has online dating changed romance?
 What are some of the benefits of online dating? What are
some of the drawbacks?
Rejection (Social Exclusion)
 Ostracism
 Being excluded, rejected, and ignored
Has been used for centuries to convey a community or
individual’s displeasure with someone’s behavior.
Effects of ostracism can be devastating.
Effects of Rejection
Inner Reactions:
 People have negative psychological and physical effects when
rejected.
 Increases rejection sensitivity.
 Hurt varies in relation to the importance of the relationship.
 Numbness, including reduced sensitivity to physical pain, is
related.
 It interferes with cognitive processing and self-regulation.
 Rejection does increase attention to social cues.
Behavioral Effects of Rejection
Rejected people:
•
Show decreases in intelligent thought
•
Approach new interactions with skepticism
•
Are typically less generous, less cooperative, and less helpful
•
Are more willing to cheat or break rules
•
Act in shortsighted, impulsive, and self-destructive ways
•
Some can turn rejection to a positive experience.
•
Repeated rejection can result in aggression.
•
School violence is often the result of social exclusion.
•
Rejected individual who are able to join another group can act in pro
social ways.
•
Aggression can lead to rejection
Loneliness
 What is loneliness?
 What is the difference between temporary and chronic
loneliness?
 In what ways can loneliness be about quantity or
quality of relationships?
 How do lonely people differ from non-lonely
people? How are they similar?
 How do people stave off loneliness?
 How is loneliness bad for physical health?
What Leads to Social
Rejection?
 What are the three main reasons children are
rejected by peers?
aggression,
withdrawal
deviance
 What is the primary reason most adults are rejected
by peers?
Deviance
Romantic Rejection and
Unrequited Love
 How can attribution theory help explain the reasons
why women refuse the offer of a date?
 What is the difference between the real reasons and the
reasons given?
 How did the reasons given encourage the man to ask again?
Romantic Rejection and
Unrequited Love (cont’d.)
 What is unrequited love? Is a situation in which one
person loves another but the other does not return that
love.
 Which gender is most likely to suffer from unrequited
love?
 What are the differences in how each party views and feels
about the situation?
 How does stalking affect people?
 Which gender is most likely to be stalked?
What Makes Us Human?
 The basic need to belong is not unique to humans
 How does language allow humans to form
relationships? How does it allow humans to reject
others?
 Why is the human quest for belonging more complex
than other animals’?
 How do human relationships require cultural
involvement?
Discussion: Dealing with
Rejection
 Consider the link between rejection and school
shootings
 What can communities do to prevent shootings from
happening?
 What are some healthy and unhealthy methods to
deal with rejection?
 How often do you employ the healthy methods versus
unhealthy methods?
Conclusion
 The need to belong is a powerful drive in humans
 People are often attracted to others based on
reciprocity, similarity, and propinquity
 Groups often reject people who are different, out of
fear that a deviant will negatively impact the group