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I always found the psychology of interpersonal attraction interesting due to the fact you hear so many common phrases about love. This article deciphers whether such phrases are worthy of using and which aren't, backed by significant studies.
Let's get straight to the point...
1. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"
There are two types of distance - geographical or functional (how likely you are to cross paths with them). Both distances matter, it's proven that you are more likely to marry someone from the same neighbourhood or from same company or from same class as you as well as the fact strangers like each other more the longer they talk, as it gives you more opportunities to see how similar you are to them. `This is the “Mere exposure effect”= more often we see it, the better we like it, stated by Bornstein, familiarity fosters fondness. Psychologist Zajonc further commented how this helps us to categorise that person as safe.
Is the Mona Lisa liked because it is a great work of art? Or because we have seen it a lot more than other works of art?
Yet, according to a newer study published by the Journal of Communication, couples in long distance relationships have more meaningful interactions than those who see each other on a daily basis, leading to higher levels of intimacy and that it leads to more 'idealisation' of their partners.
Yet, absence really doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.
2. "Birds of a feather flock together"
I believe we can claim this phrase as true due to the homophily principle (McPherson et al, 2001) that explains that similarity breeds connection, this is called implicit egotism.
We like people who are similar to us to extremes such as...
• We prefer a stranger’s face if it has been morphed to include elements of our own
• We are more likely to marry someone whose first or last name begins with the same letter as our own
• We leave bigger tips for waiting staff who repeat our order back to us
Birds of a feather do indeed flock together (similarity breeds liking).
There is just one exception...
Our MHC (major histocompatibility complex) leads to particular pheromones which in turn are attractive to those with the opposite MHC complexes. We like people who smell different to us, having different immune system, so if you have a baby, they would have the strong part of each parents immune system.
3. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
The BBC did an internet survey with 220,000 people about what traits people found most desirable in a partner. Attractiveness was ranked as more important by men, wanting signs of youth and ability to produce healthy offspring. Honesty, humour, kindness and dependability was ranked as more important by women, with them wanting qualities that will support offspring. Personality was much more valued by women and less by men (including homosexual men).
But beauty is a short term preoccupation. Fisher and Garcia’s 2012 survey found that 43% women and 33% men had fallen in love with someone they were not initially attracted to. It was found that attractiveness is less important if we have known someone for a while as well, pretty pleases but perhaps only for a puny period (Myers and Twenge).
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – but only in the short-term.
And perhaps being average is better than being exceptionally beautiful. Rhodes (2006) took a lot of faces and morphed them together to make average face (composite face),
they then asked people to rate the attractiveness of composite face over other individual faces. We like people to be easier to process, so composites faces are preferred.
4. "Flattery will get you nowhere"
Flattery will get you somewhere (but not very far).
Psychologist Aronson, stated that constant approval and flattery makes it have no value.
We need to make sure we are authentic in our communication, so we need to not always have positive bias on someone. Excessive flattery can evoke the sense that the person has ulterior motives. Positive bias is important but so is authenticity, satisfying and exciting relationships more likely to be successful.
5. "Love hurts"
It's not love, but the absence of love that hurts, incurring the feelings of rejection and exclusion. The dorsal and ventral anterior cingulate cortex are activated when we experience social threat, rejection, or negative evaluation. It is also activated when we feel physical pain and being excluded can feel like the same pain.
6. "I'm Addicted to them"
“We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love” - Freud
Freud believed initial passionate love mimics the same factors of an addiction. It has been proven that the same reward pathways in the brain are activated during passionate love as for addictions to other substances (Fisher et al, 2016), many relationship and post-breakup patterns can certainly resemble addiction.
References:
USA TODAY. (n.d.). Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Study says yes. [online] Available at: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/20/long-distance-relationships-2013/2568295/ [Accessed 20 Aug. 2023].
McPherson, Miller, et al. “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 27, 2001, pp. 415–44. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678628. Accessed 20 Aug. 2023.
Fisher HE, Xu X, Aron A, Brown LL. Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction? How the Fields That Investigate Romance and Substance Abuse Can Inform Each Other. Front Psychol. 2016 May 10;7:687. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00687. PMID: 27242601; PMCID: PMC4861725.
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