The Formation of Relationships

The Formation of Relationships

Attraction can be defined as an individual's tendency to evaluate

someone in a positive way. Attraction is a multifactorial emotion.

That is, several factors have an influence on interpersonal

attraction.

Four main explanations have been developed to account for why we

develop particular relationships.

Proximity - this is the single most important predictor in who we will

develop relationships with, and is termed the 'propinquity effect'. We

develop a certain familiarity with people we see regularly, which is

positive, in that it allows us to get to know more about their

behaviour. Also, the more frequent the interaction, the less effort

has to be made within it. From a sociobiological perspective, it

benefits us to socialise and co-operate with others who are close to

us, because if we are pleasant, and give favours to others, we are

more likely to receive them back.

Research into proximity - this includes Segals' 1974 study in which he

monitored the friendships made by police cadets, who were made to sit

next to each other in alphabetical order of their surnames in the

classroom. People whose names were close together in the alphabet,

formed relationships with each other, more readily than those who were

far apart alphabetically.

Festinger (1950) interviewed married students living in apartments,

and found they were 10 times more likely to have friends within the

same block, (and furthermore, on the same floor), than in other

apartments in the local area.

Similarity - this indicates that people are attracted to others of a

similar age, gender, intelligence, and who have similar at...

... middle of paper ...

...independent

enough to look after itself.

Sociobiological theory has been criticised for oversimplifying complex

human behaviour. It doesn't take into account cultural differences.

For example, it may be possible that men desire attractive women

because they are surrounded by media images of such women, and because

they learn from an early age that they should be aiming to get into a

relationship with that sort of women. Also, sociobiological theory

uses hindsight to explain current behaviour patterns, and has no

predictive power. You could easily explain any type of behaviour using

this theory because it is so broad. If men were more faithful, then

you could easily modify the theory, and say that this was the case

because men knew that their offspring wouldn't survive, without them

around to help take care of it.