Understanding the Factors of Attraction

Attraction is more in depth than simply the feeling that you like someone. We meet people that we just seem to be attracted to and those we are repelled by. There are six factors that influence attraction. Each is unique and they all help us to connect and bond with others. These bond and relationships can produce three different types of love. Below we will take a deeper look at factors in attraction, the human need to bond, and the three types of love.

Attraction is an emotion that arouses our pleasurable interest. Attraction has six factors they are proximity, attractiveness, matching, similarity, equitability and hard to get. For us to be attracted to someone we must be exposed to them. The factor of proximity is important because we are more likely to be exposed to someone if they are close to us. The more often we are exposed to someone the greater the possibility for us to like them. This is known as the mere-exposure effect. An example of this is; if you interact with a person daily you have a greater chance to get to know them and being attracted to them than if you simple passed them once on the street.

We tend to be drawn to pretty things. We like beautiful art, pretty clothes and the same goes for people. We are more attracted to those we find attractive. Attractiveness is important when starting a relationship (Feenstra, 2011, p.169). Most relationships end up with both parties being close when based on attractiveness. This is the matching hypothesis, the tendency to match psychically attractively to each other in the relationships. Another important factor in attraction is similarity. We are more likely, when given the opportunity, to form relationships with those who have similar values and interest. We tend to h...

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...chemical and scientific reasoning behind love but he does do a good job categorizing the different types (Tam D., 2014, para. 11). As we have looked into the factors of attractions we have learned that there are many things that influence our feelings. Attraction, bonding, and love are all natural human actions and feeling but they can be complicated. Relationships that are more likely to last through time are those that are bonded with equity for all parties and have the characteristics of companionate love.

Works Cited

1) Feenstra, J., (2011). Chapters 13 & 14 Prejudice. In, Introduction to social psychology.

(pp. 169, 171, 178, 181) Bridgepoint Education, Inc

2) Tam D. (2014). Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love | Psychology of Dating. Retrieved March 9, 2014, Para. 11, from http://psychologyofdating.net/robert-sternbergs-triangular-theory-of-love/