Ramadhar Singh

Attitudes and attraction: A new test of the attraction, repulsion and similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry hypotheses

Dissimilarity and similarity between attitudes of the participants and a stranger were manipulated across two sets of issues to test the attraction, repulsion and similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry hypotheses. Participants (N = 192) judged social (liking, enjoyment of company) and intellectual (intelligence, general knowledge) attractiveness of the stranger. The similarity in the first set of attitudes x similarity in the second set of attitudes effect emerged in social attraction, but not in intellectual attraction. Stated simply, dissimilarity had a greater weight than similarity in social attraction, but equal weight in intellectual attraction. These results support the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry hypothesis that predicts dissimilarity-repulsion to be stronger than similarity-attraction. However, they reject (1) the attraction hypothesis that dissimilarity and similarity produce equal and opposite effects on social attraction; and (2) the repulsion hypothesis that only dissimilar attitudes affect social attraction by leading to repulsion. An equal weighting of dissimilarity and similarity in intellectual attraction further suggested that the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry on social attraction is reflective of a stronger avoidance response in the Darwinian sense.

Attitudes and Attraction: A Developmental Study of the Similarity-Attraction and Dissimilarity-Repulsion Hypotheses

Contrasting predictions ofByrnes similarity-attraction hypothesis and Rosenbaums dissimilarity-repulsion hypothesis were tested with 7-, 11-, 15-, and 21-year-olds in Singapore. The study included a control condition of no-attitude information and two experimental conditions of similar and dissimilar attitudes. Measures of attraction, assumed similarity of attitudes, and accuracy in perceiving the manipulations were taken. The repulsion hypothesis was supported with the two younger groups; the attraction hypothesis was supported with the two older groups. The repulsion effect emerged because the two younger groups assumed a high level of attitudinal similarity in the control condition of no-attitude information and because they inaccurately perceived the manipulated similarity of attitudes in the experimental conditions. These results reaffirm the similarity-attraction hypothesis and further demonstrate the role of age-related cognitive processes in interpersonal attraction.

Impression formation from intellectual and social traits: Evidence for behavioural adaptation and cognitive processing

Judgments of intellectual and social attractiveness of a target were taken from a pair of moderate and extreme intellectual or social traits. Weights of the traits given were identified from the pattern in their two-way interaction effect. Responses to a control condition of no-trait information provided the estimates of the person positivity bias in the participants, and the relative effects of the negative and positive traits were determined relative to such bias values. Consistent with the cognitive hypothesis, positive intellectual and negative social traits received more weight in the intellectual and social attraction responses, respectively. However, negative and moderate traits carried more weight in social attraction as predicted by the hypothesis of behavioural adaptation. Despite the asymmetric weighting of intellectual traits in intellectual attraction and of social traits in social attraction, the negativity effect was stronger than the positivity effect. Evidently, mechanisms postulated by both the hypotheses co-exist but they are detectable by only the operationalization employed in the two research paradigms.

In-Group Bias and Fair-Mindedness as Strategies of Self-Presentation in Intergroup Perception

The authors reviewed the anomalies in tests of the in-group bias hypothesis and tested the hypothesis that intergroup perception is a compromise between the need to preserve a positive social identity and maintain a self-image of fair-mindedness. Given two response measures, participants may show discrimination along one but not the other. Evaluation of multiple groups may invoke recategorization: Contrast between out-group and in-group will serve the social identity need; assimilation of at least one out-group with the in-group will satisfy the fair-mindedness need. Participants age 11 and above showed in-group bias in competence but no discrimination in attraction; the 7-year-olds discriminated along both measures. The hypothesized recategorization effects emerged in a within-participants study. Nonnegative ratings of the out-group also illustrated fairness in the participants. These results portray in-group bias and fair-mindedness as strategies of self presentation in intergroup perception.

Different Mediators for the Age, Sex, and Attitude Similarity Effects in Interpersonal Attraction

The authors manipulated attitude similarity between a same age-sex stranger and participants aged 7–21 years and measured interpersonal attraction. The mediators measured were inferred attraction and affect in Experiment 1 and inferred attraction and cognitive evaluation in Experiment 2. In general, attraction was higher at younger than older ages and for an attitudinally similar than dissimilar stranger. Attitude similarity effects were mediated by the two measured variables in each experiment. Importantly, decrease in attraction of females from ages 11 to 21 years was mediated by inferred attraction, and increase in attraction of males across these ages was mediated by cognitive evaluation. Results support initial influences of the person positivity bias, followed by communal motives in females and agentive motives in males.

Reinforcement and attraction specifying the effects of affective states

A multiplicative effect of magnitude and proportion of positive reinforcements on attraction and self-rated feelings was examined. Subjects (N = 270) rated their attraction toward persons associated with one of three reinforcement magnitudes (personality similarity, attitude similarity, and personal evaluations) and one of six proportions of positive reinforcements (.00, .20, .40, .60, .80, and 1.00). Results indicated that the slope of the linear attraction function increased and the Y-intercept decreased with increasing magnitude of reinforcement (p < .05). A similar interaction effect was found on the feelings of the subjects (N = 90) in another experiment. The results were interpreted as added support for Byrnes reinforcement-affect model of interpersonal attraction.

Attitudes, personal evaluations, cognitive evaluation and interpersonal attraction: On the direct, indirect and reverse‐causal effects

The authors hypothesized that (1) attraction toward a stranger based on attitudinal similarity is automatic, but cognitive evaluation of the strangers quality before the measurement of attraction can make attraction nonautomatic or controlled; (2) personal evaluations from the stranger activate automatic attraction and cognitive evaluation; (3) controlled attraction from attitudes and automatic attraction and cognitive evaluation from personal evaluations engender reverse-causal effects (i.e. they mediate each other); and (4) attraction and cognitive evaluation are distinct constructs. Attitudinal similarity between the participant and the stranger or personal evaluations of the former by the latter were varied in Experiment 1 (N=96), and were crossed with each other in Experiment 2 (N=240). Orders of response measurement were either cognitive evaluation followed by attraction or attraction followed by cognitive evaluation. Results confirmed the hypotheses. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Attitudes and attraction: A test of two hypotheses for the similarity± dissimilarity asymmetry

Recent studies reported a greater effect of attitudinal dissimilarity than similarity on interpersonal attraction. Hypotheses of (1) person positivity bias and (2) a greater weighting of attitudinal dissimilarity than similarity for such an asymmetry were tested. Extravert (N = 90) and introvert (N = 90) college students in Singapore indicated their social and intellectual attraction towards a dissimilar or similar stranger. Attraction responses were also obtained in a control condition of no-attitude information. As predicted, extraverts showed a higher person positivity bias in the control condition and hence a greater rejection of the dissimilar stranger than did introverts. Dissimilarity also resulted in a more negative social than intellectual attraction. Taken together, these results put the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry on a firm ground. More important, they show (a) that extraversion affects the asymmetry via the person positivity bias, and (b) that weight of dissimilar attitudes depends upon the kind of attraction responses solicited. Reasons for the similarity-dissimilarity symmetry, instead of the asymmetry, in past attitudes-and-attraction research are discussed.

Multiple Mediators of the Attitude Similarity-Attraction Relationship: Dominance of Inferred Attraction and Subtlety of Affect

The authors examined the mediation of the attitude similarity–attraction relationship. When affect was the sole measured mediating variable, the hypothesized partial mediation held in Experiment 1 (N = 60). In Experiment 2 (N = 96), ratings of the 3 potential mediators (affect, inferred attraction, and cognitive evaluation) and of an irrelevant variable (inferred cognitive evaluation) were taken at 2 orders of mediator measurement. The attitude similarity-attraction link was more strongly mediated by inferred attraction than by cognitive evaluation. Surprisingly, however, the effect of affect on attraction was reversed in the multiple-mediation analysis. Post hoc analyses disclosed that affect transmitted the similarity effect from its preceding variable only to the succeeding one. Theoretical and methodological implications of the dominance of inferred attraction and the subtlety of affect are discussed.

On the importance of trust in interpersonal attraction from attitude similarity

Trust has been identified as a key factor in relationship development and appreciation of group members. However, trust has not been previously considered as a reason for attitude similarity to result in attraction. Thus, in the current research, the authors investigated trust as a key component of attraction based on attitude similarity. Trust was shown to significantly mediate attitude similarity effects on attraction when measured alone (Experiment 1) and alongside positive affect in the participants (Experiment 2A), respect for the partner (Experiment 2B), or inferred partner’s attraction to the participants (Experiment 2C). Trust was also shown to have independent effects on attraction when juxtaposed with all three of the traditional mediators of attitude similarity effects (Experiment 3). Implications of these findings for models of attraction are discussed.