What are the social factors that influence interpersonal atraction Discuss in relation to relevant psychological theories and studies - Essay Example

One must take under consideration the fact that in an interpersonal attraction setting there are two chief subjects, the attractor and the attract-ee, and in order to get to a valid conclusion, this essay will discuss the effects of social factors on both the subjects/parties involved. Attraction in layman’s terms would mean to magnetize or get pulled towards a person through the emotional sentiments of love, being fond of, respect, devotion, or friendship. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to understand ‘what gets a person to like or respect or love or feel sexually attracted towards another person’.

To procreate could possibly be the leading reason towards the significance of interpersonal attraction; a second may be to become more sociable, which is also very important as loneliness is usually known to cause numerous psychological and physical disorders including depression, high stress, and reducing the efficiency and life of the heart. (Garfield, 1988, pp. 34-36) (Murphy & Kupshik, 1992, pp. 1-3, 17) (Bricklin, Golin, Rodale, Grandinetti, Press, & Lieberman, 1990, p. 154) The fact that human beings are more attracted to people that are very attractive is indeed true, but this is normally a prejudiced case of interpersonal attraction as the more attractive party might or might not like the other person.

Besides, qualitative and quantitative researches have shown that two people are most likely to be in a mutual relationship if their physical attractiveness is equivalent, as it also supports another social factor ‘social exchange theory’. (Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond, 2001, p. 298) Uniform outcomes are shared by the equity theory, that if two individuals are in a relationship it is only just that either they share a physical equilibrium or one entity suffices the needs or provides much more to the more attractive entity in order for the relationship to run smoothly.

In layman’s terms