Interpersonal Attraction

Interpersonal attraction can be defined as how and what attracts us to individuals. As a college student, I am constantly judging people by the first moment I meet them because I am frequently searching for friends and relations in my life. What sparked my interest to research this topic was my fondness for the opposite sex. I was curious as to what attracted to me to certain men and not others. Initially, I believed I was drawn solely to men from a physical attraction in an original engagement, but I found that there is more to this matter. Although physicality is a large degree of interpersonal attraction, research proves that there are several other determining factors playing a part in attraction on first encounters. The most profound principles I found underlying the first interactions are proximity, similarity, and physicality. It is our natural proclivity as human beings to decide whom we are drawn to even as infants. After much research from psychologists, I accumulated evidence explicating what necessitates interpersonal attraction for various people and its significance in every day life. We are constantly meeting new people, seeing new faces, and choosing whether we feel attractions to individuals consciously or not. Thus, the initial meeting of other people is very influential in the possibility of forming a general relationship and/ or attraction.

Since interpersonal attraction is seldom discussed, I found the need to explicate in depth what it implies. In general, attraction is an individual's portrayal of positive attitudes and responses towards someone in a positive manner. For decades, scientists thought that attraction standards were culturally based, but recent studies in this past decade have proven that there truly are psychological means for what makes humans attracted to one another (Symons, 1995). This can come in the form of positive characteristics, positive emotions experienced, and/or positive actions. The ability to decide who is good or bad for one's self in different realms, ranging from one's occupation to their mate, is "considered critical for their well-being and survival" (Kazdin, 2000, p. 317). Hence, the importance of interpersonal attraction is its ability to establish possible short term or long term important relations in one's life. The initial attraction occurs when one cognitively judges another based on distinguishing traits. This prognosis is developed by the combination of the three principles of interpersonal attraction I previously introduced: proximity, similarity, and physicality (Symons, 1995).

Proximity, in this text, is the distance one is relative to residences or workplaces and can be identified by availability of others. Proximity also associates with communicative distance, which is, who is in people's "communicative network" and how reachable they are for contact (Icek, 1995, p. 59). The more people one has to go through to reach an individual, the more doubtful interpersonal attraction will arise. For instance, this is true even to the people I sit next to in my classes; I am more apt to become friends with those sitting next to me than someone across the room because the most proximate students are highly accessible. People are more likely to be attracted to those who are short distances because they are much easier to be in contact with than someone who is far away (Johnson, 2000). For example, the people in the same work environment are likely to be friends with each other or at least acquaintances since the availability for attraction is extremely close by. When I worked at Victoria's Secret, those were the girls I became friends with immediately, not workers in other stores. Distance is very influential in who people become attracted to because the physically closest people are highly accessible for contact.

Although proximity increases attraction in the same job environment, proximity outside of the job is an even greater influence for the reason that the choice to interact is not forced. In agreement with this evidence, my closest friends have always been outside of my job because there was no pressure to become acquaintances with them. In the atmosphere of technology, the ability to contact more people has dramatically increased, but attraction is still hard to form if one has never met them (Johnson, 2000). The almighty Facebook.com fanatics like myself have over a hundred friends, but my real friends that have this global college networking, are the people I am in close physical proximity to; I think it is hard to have a true attraction to people through a photo and email since it is not in physical closeness and it seems unrealistic. A picture displayed online is not nearly as strong as actual physical contingence. Accordingly, the possibility of attraction on first encounters drastically increases if individuals are in close proximity to each other.

People in close proximity subsequentially increase their familiarity to individuals. Familiar people are more likely to be attractive because they are judged to be safe, least likely to cause harm, and inexpensive in time and effort. Initial appeal is most highly prominent when one is easy to physically approach (Kazdin, 2000). The people I see on Arcadia's college campus, I expect to be harmless and amenable for the reason of familiarity. To exemplify this, the exposure effect states that "the more exposure to a stimulus, the more apt we are to like them;" the more times I see someone at college, the greater likelihood I may be attracted to them (Icek, 1995, p. 61). Hence, attraction probability enhances when proximate others are comfortable to be around and are highly accessible. In a study of college students' friendships, their top three friends were recorded by their proximity. The data found that sixty-five percent were in the same building, forty-one percent were next-door, twenty-two percent were two doors away, and ten percent were at opposite halls. In my own similar incidence living in the dorms, my best friend lives directly across from me and one of my closest friends lives a couple doors down. This is evidence that the familiar individuals in people's lives are more likely to become attractive. Familiar people, who are in close proximity, increase the chance of attraction in the preliminary as well as in the long-term.

Another important factor for interpersonal attraction is the similarity effect, which happens when increased similarities foster increased odds for interpersonal attraction (Gilbert, 1998). If an individual examines comparable attributes to oneself in another person, attraction immediately increases. Similar people "provide validation for our characteristics and beliefs" and will increase one's self-esteem