What happens when the interactions are with people to whom we are closer and about whom we have strong feelings? We will begin by asking about the factors that attract to others.
Could we ever hope to discover what it is that determines which pairs of people will become friends or even lovers? On the face of it, it seems hard to believe that we will. For we've all been exposed to the romantic notions of our culture. We've all read countless novels and seen countless movies that show millionaires befriending tramps, princes marrying showgirls, and beauties enamored of beasts. Each teaching the lesson that friendship and, most especially, love are not ruled by reason. But as we shall see, while the attraction that humans have for each other has irrational and complex aspects, some of the factors that determine it are surprisingly sensible and simple.
One of the most important determinants of attraction and liking is proximity. By now, dozens of studies have shown that if you want to predict who will make friends with whom, the first thing to ask is who is nearby. Students who live next to each other in a dormitory or sit next to each other in classes develop stronger relations than thosb e who live or sit only a bit farther away. And, what holds for friendship also holds for mate selection.
Why should proximity be so important? One answer is that you can't like someone you've never met, and the chances of meeting that someone are much greater if she is nearby. But why should getting to know her make you like her? One reason may be familiarity. There is a very interesting study that applies this general idea to the comparison of faces and their mirror images. Which will be better liked? If familiarity is the critical variable, then our friends should prefer a photograph of our face to one of its mirror image, since they've seen the first much more often than the second. But we ourselves should prefer the mirror image which is even more familiar. The results were as predicted by the familiarity hypothesis.
Next is Similarity. Do people like others who are similar to themselves, or do they prefer those who are very different? In general, people tend to like others who are similar to themselves. For example, elementary school students prefer other children who perform about as well as they do in academics, sports, and music, and best friends in high school resemble each other in age, year in school, and highschool grades. But Whether similarity of personality characteristics such as sociability and extroversion play a similar role in determining attraction is still unclear.
On the other hand, Many studies showed that homogamy also plays a role in determining a couple's stability. Couples who remained together after two-and-half years were more similar than those who had broken up. And married couples tend to be similar on nearly all personality dimensions.
At last, physical attractiveness is one of the factors that determine attraction. There is little doubt that for a given time and culture there is considerable agreement as to how attractive a particular man or woman is. Nor is there any doubt that this factor is important in determining a person's appeal(or at least his or her initial appeal) to most members of the opposit sex. The vast sums of money spent on cosmetics, fashion, health and beauty magazines, diets, and various forms of plastic surgery are one kind of evidence.
In one study, freshmen were randomly paired at a dance and later asked how much they liked their partner and whether they might want to go out with him or her. The main factor that determined each person's desirability as a future date was his or her physical attractiveness.
Physically attractiveness individuals also benefit from the common belief that what is beautiful is good, because people tend to associate physical attractiveness with a variety of positive personality traits, including dominance, good social skills, intelligence, happiness, and good mental health. And there is an element of truth to this stereotype. Physically attractive people actually are more popular and sexually experienced, less socially anxious and lonely, but at least it is possible to be not more intelligent.
Until now, we have been concerned about the factors of attraction. It is true that we are trying to be attractive to other people always. So I chose this topic for our members to give some tips. And I hope that my speech could be helpful to you.
It's all my preparing. Thank you. ^^