There are many theories that speak of the role of physical appearance in attraction, including analyzing its function at the beginning of the relationship. In social psychology, it is also a studied aspect on which several research has been carried out.
It is necessary to define the term attraction, since it can be confused with the affiliation that occurs in friendly relations, in fact, it is possible to build relationships without being attracted to the other person.
- Authors such as Surra and Milardo (1988) establish two types of relationships between humans: first.
- We find interactive networks.
- In which people interact instrumentally to achieve goals.
Second, we have psychological networks, in which people feel close and important to others, and the connections they make go beyond goals.
Therefore, the term attraction is part of psychological networks, in which attraction is understood as the natural desire to establish a relationship with others, interact with them and evaluate their actions and suggestions in a positive way.
Authors such as Feingold (1990) wanted to study the role of physical appearance in attracting relationships, for which five methodological elements were identified:
Its purpose was to see if beauty determines our assessment of others. The answer was yes.
The study found that men valued physical appearance more than women, but it was also possible to determine that this effect was more important in subjective measures than in behavioral responses.
This means that there seem to be differences between what these participants said they were looking for in a couple and what they were really looking for. These measures may also have been sessed by the stereotype of what is considered attractive in society.
The same study showed that the most attractive women had more romantic encounters. Did attractive men, on the other hand, have a higher platonic popularity index?Friends.
This allows us to glimpse the idea that when interactions are romantic, physical attractiveness seems to be more important to men, however, when the goal is friendship, beauty becomes more relevant to women.
Another study by Hamermesh and Biddle (1998) illustrates the existence of a relationship between money or material resources and physical attractiveness.
They found that less attractive people earned much less than those with a high attractive score. Gender, occupation and gender were not relevant to the results.
Eagly (1991) analyzed the weight of physical appearance in attraction through relevant psychological constructs, such as social competence, intelligence, integrity and altruism.
He found a direct relationship between attractiveness and social competence (whose explanations may be related to the ease of contact or being accepted), a moderate relationship between intellectual and attractive competition, and an irrelevant relationship between altruism, integrity and attraction.
The influence of physical appearance on attraction and couple selection has been studied, the explanation refers to how men and women invest in reproduction.
Wanting to ensure the presence of genes in the next generation is what determines what interests both of them. These traits are not only defined by physical attractiveness, but seem to play a crucial role.
Prototypes of universal beauty seem to confirm the psychobiological hypothesis by defining the ideal of feminine beauty with attributes associated with immaturity and motherhood.
These attributes are large eyes and mouth, small nose, full breasts and wide hips. With the ideal of male beauty, the relationship is given with a wide jaw and muscle strength.
However, as mentioned above, in the case of men, the traits that sociobiology speaks of are not only related to physical appearance.
A Jensen Campbell study concluded that the most attractive men were not the most physically dominant, but those who had the most behaviors involved helping.
Gangestad and Buss (1993) proposed parasitic theory, also present in psychobiology, and observed the role of physical attractiveness in 29 different cultures.
It could be seen that in areas where pathogenic parasites are most likely to be infected, physical attractiveness is much more valued, in fact, physical appearance appears to be a good indicator of immunocompetence and disease resistance.
On the other hand, Feingold believes that the media has played a key role in what humans consider “attractive. “
You’re saying there are some myths left over because of their visibility into movies and series?Beautiful, friendly, strong heroes with all the features someone might want in a couple.
The tendency to generalize on humans would lead to the application of this relationship between attractiveness and positive characteristics to all kinds of contexts, which makes us a victim of a fundamental error of attribution, in which, without sufficient data, we assume the success of attractiveness. People.
We believe that positive attraction and personality traits have some kind of relationship, while this success is certainly due to external and unstable factors.
We would therefore attribute virtues of competence and kindness to attractive people, and behave accordingly with this attribution. We have a relationship with someone who is competent, with someone good, and we want to maintain a balance with reciprocity: to live up to it. someone.
The fact that you give all this to a person can provoke a reaction in him, so he is more likely to behave in the same way, this is called self-fulfilling prophecy.
If we refer to someone we consider a failure, less intelligent and more despicable, our predisposition will be very different, these interactions will also mark the response of the interlocutor, and if we leave with very high but negative expectations, it will be easier to find what we already hope to find. .
In any case, through psychobiology and social stereotypes, it seems that physical appearance has a significant importance in attracting relationships.
This is not the only aspect, because others, such as resemblance to the interlocutor and familiarity, have already been discovered, but it is certainly one of them.