The Psychology Of Attraction
Mere exposure effect - Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2), 1-27.
This effect is our tendency to like things, in this case faces, the more we are exposed to them. On a day-to-day basis, we experience this effect with our coworkers, classmates, waiters/waitresses and even ourselves. People tend to choose romantic partners based on similar interests, values, intelligence, social class and physical attractiveness. Alvarez, L & Jaffe, k. (2004). Narcissism Guides Mate Selection: Humans Mate Assertively By Facial Resemblance, Following An Algorithm Of “Self Seeking Like” Evolutionary Psychology, 2, 177-194
Alvarez and Jaffe suggest that some of these couple pairings could be due to narcissism. Whereby if you find yourself attractive, then it would make sense to choose someone that matches your level of attractiveness and thus a partner that looks like you. However, Hinsz gives us another possible explanation, that if a partner’s face resembles your own and thus your family members you will subconsciously trust this person more from the outset because their face is similar to the ones that you’ve been frequently exposed to most frequently and the ones that you love and trust the most. Hinsz, V. B. (1989). Facial Resemblence In Engaged And Married Couples Journal Of Social And Personal Relationships, 6, 223-223.
So familiarity is important for the purposes of attraction. As it turns out, this familiarity bias extends past just physical attractiveness and is even preferred when hearing different voices. As mentioned in the previous section, Researchers at the University of British Columbia found people tend to gravitate towards those with voices similar to their own, as it sends a soothing message of “community and belongingness”. In terms of fashion and clothing, what most people do wrong is they continuously mix clothing per day. Most people need to have a new shirt to wear every day of the week. This is.... wrong. Games such as Grand theft Auto and even RPG games show us that main characters wear the same clothes. Whether it be for aesthetics or armor, a good fashion sense or not can be appreciated for its continuity. This goes for everything about yourself, from how you dress to how you walk and even to how you talk. There is a very real study to why the most attractive stars and memorable characters such as Michael Jackson, Prince, and the least attractive stars(objectively) are all perceived to be higher attractive than the average person. This is due to something that’s called the “Mere Exposure effect”.
Confidence and Body Language - Both men and women rate confidence as an important trait in a potential partner. As seen in Bram P. Buunk “Age and gender differences in mate selection criteria for various involvement levels.”
Murphy et al in “The Role of Overconfidence in Romantic Desirability and Competition Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.” Murphy ran four different experiments in order to find the optimal confidence level in people. What was found was that overconfident people were ranked as more confident which did increase desirability however, they were also perceived as arrogant and thus decreasing their desirability. This is where silent confidence comes into play and this is achieved through one’s own body language.
What is Body Language? Body language accounts for 70% - 90% of our overall daily communication. Meaning that it’s far more important than the words coming out of your mouth, yet many people will stress over what to say and how to say it more so than how they stand, make eye contact or walk. Body language can be the difference between getting the interview or not, attracting a mate or not, sealing the business investment or not.
Body language is the difference between a negative encounter with someone or a positive one. Our Body language is a direct signal to our thoughts. Negative body language can and will signal to other people what your thoughts are about them and your overall mood at that time. Now, this doesn’t happen because people are reading your body language and then judging you on it. In reality, the average person has no idea about body language, instead they’re judging you unconsciously off instinct. Body language is perhaps the oldest language. We were reading the body language of a potential threat long before we were speaking.
This is why when you meet someone you get that “good feeling about this guy” instinct. Or “I don’t know what it is about that person, but I find them so sexy”. If this happens its body language. Your brain is unconsciously picking up on cues you didn’t realize were there. The end result is a 7 to 21 second window where we make a snap judgement of someone, or they make a snap judgement of us.
If you don’t think this is something you need to worry about, just remember, first impressions stick like Gorilla Glue. With that said there are attractive body language and unattractive body language that we may at times signal out unconsciously. Eye contact, the most essential part of a body language arsenal. Eye contact will control any negotiation, sexual encounter or argument. Once you learn how to master eye contact, it’ll feel like a cheat code. So how do you do it? Eye contact is tricky, but it is simple. Simply look anywhere with intention. When looking at someone and catching their eyes you should actually look at them as intended instead of shying away. Every cell in your body will tell you to look away after a certain amount of time, but you shouldn’t. 2 seconds is enough. Now we’re going go through all of the proper ways to display attractive body language as well as what body language is attractive…
The Psychology Of Attraction Ebook
This is a small section of what is a 4 chapter 268-page book. This is a strange concept to properly get your head around, but the premise is that attraction is very much mental as it is physical. That’s not saying to try and communicate telepathically in order to get your crush to like you back. The message is, that there are some ways to make your crush accidentally become attracted to you though it may not be through physical preference. It’s important to not max out one of these lessons but to incorporate all of these lessons into your daily life to maximize results; whether that be in your dating life, content creation, or even in your business. The entirety of this book will cover facial attractiveness in minute detail, however facial attractiveness preference is always evolving and changing. This section seeks to tap into the things that don’t change, covering the psychology of why we are attracted to things rather than people themselves. Things being something we can attach to people as well and is something we often do without much deeper understanding of why.
If you’ve made it this far then you’re interested in learning more! GOOD! If so click on the title above or the book download to be redirected to the amazon link.