Why people we anticipate meeting seem more attractive.
Kindness, cooperation, gossip, crowds, attraction — social psychology studies provide key insights into these phenomena.
Kindness, cooperation, gossip, crowds, attraction — social psychology studies provide key insights into these phenomena.
In an increasingly self-centred world, it is easy to discount the influence of other people’s behaviour.
People tend to assume their own personalities, preferences and judgments are what predicts their behaviour while forgetting that we are social creatures.
By paying attention to social psychology, we complete the picture of human behaviour.
So, below are 8 psychology studies from the members-only section of PsyBlog that reveal aspects of how other people influence our behaviour — and we theirs.
(If you are not already, find out how to become a PsyBlog member here.)
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Beauty really is more than skin-deep, psychologists find.
These positive personality traits can make people people look more attractive, psychologists find.
Positive personality traits — like helpfulness and honesty — make people appear physically more attractive, research finds.
Those displaying negative personality traits — like rudeness and unfairness — look physically less attractive to observers.
The finding is particularly strong for when women are evaluating men, since women place a little more emphasis on personality.
The finding helps justify those who say that ‘inner beauty’ is important.
Dr Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr., who led the research, said:
“Perceiving a person as having a desirable personality makes the person more suitable in general as a close relationship partner of any kind.”
For the study, participants viewed pictures of strangers and rated them for attractiveness.
Then they got some information about their personalities, and rated them again.
This mimics the way we evaluate people in real life.
First we just see them without known anything about their personality.
Then we adjust our view of them as we learn about their personality.
Those displaying positive personalities were deemed more attractive, the results showed.
It didn’t matter whether someone was in a relationship or not, or whether they were considering the person for a romantic relationship or not.
Dr Lewandowski said:
“This research provides a more positive alternative by reminding people that personality goes a long way toward determining your attractiveness; it can even change people’s impressions of how good looking you are.”
This study clearly shows that we can adjust our perception of someone’s physical attractiveness as we get more information about their personality.
The authors said that…
“…it demonstrates the substantial power of personality information, in that it is sufficient to overcome initial evaluations.”
The study was published in the journal Personal Relationships (Lewandowski et al., 2007).
The most useless jobs for society — as rated by the people who work in those jobs.
Psychologists go to surprising lengths to show how much a hug can help.
These personality traits are universally linked to higher social status.
These personality traits are universally linked to higher social status.
The traits that help a person climb the social ladder include honesty, intelligence and being hard-working, research finds.
Across 14 different countries and societies, researchers found that the traits linked to higher social status were remarkably consistent.
Similarly, being knowledgeable, making sacrifices for others and being kind increased a person’s social status.
Having a long-term mate is also seen as positive for social status for both men and women.
The traits that universally decreased a person’s social status are, unsurprisingly, being unclean, a thief and mean and nasty.
Professor David Buss, the study’s first author, said:
“Humans live in a social world in which relative rank matters for nearly everything — your access to resources, your ability to attract mates, and even how long you live.
From an evolutionary perspective, reproductively relevant resources flow to those high in status and trickle slowly, if at all, to those lower on the social totem pole.”
The researchers surveyed 2,751 people in 14 countries about 240 different factors that might affect a person’s social status.
The results showed that certain factors were widely perceived as positive, said Professor Buss:
“From the Gypsies in Romania to the native islanders of Guam, people displaying intelligence, bravery and leadership rise in rank in the eyes of their peers.
But possessing qualities that inflict costs on others will cause your status to plummet, whether you live in Russia or Eritrea.”
There were some interesting kinks in the results.
Men gain more status from taking risks and being physically brave.
Women gain more status from their appearance and domestic skills.
Apparently, not enough has changed in the gender wars in this respect.
A sense of humour, meanwhile, is generally positive for social status, but less so in East Asian countries like China, South Korea and Japan.
Practising witchcraft is only a problem for your social status if you happen to live in Eritrea or Zimbabwe, the research found.
Finally, catching a sexually transmitted disease, along with being dirty, unclean and nasty decrease a person’s social status, Professor Buss said:
“Although this study was conducted prior to the current pandemic, it’s interesting that being a disease vector is universally detrimental to a person’s status.
Socially transmitted diseases are evolutionarily ancient challenges to human survival, so humans have psychological adaptations to avoid them.
Lowering a person’s social status is an evolutionarily ancient method of social distancing from disease vectors.”
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Buss et al., 2020).
People prone to this emotion work the hardest.
What trait people find attractive on first impression and over the long term.
What trait people find attractive on first impression and over the long term.
Optimists are seen as more socially attractive than pessimists, research finds.
But this is just when people meet for the first time and do not know each other.
In long-term relationships, optimists are best matched with other optimists and pessimists get on with both other optimists and pessimists.
In other words, optimists mix well in long-term relationships with everyone, but pessimists can be a downer on other optimists — although they don’t seem to bother other pessimists.
The results come from a study of 248 people who read a series of vignettes that described either optimistic or pessimistic people.
Most people found the optimists more socially attractive.
However, people who were themselves optimists liked the other optimist even more.
On the other hand, people who were pessimists were not quite as keen on the optimist, but still preferred them to the pessimist.
Pessimists also had a sneaky liking for the other pessimist.
The results were more nuanced, though, when people considered their own long-term relationships.
Optimists were more satisfied when in a relationship with another optimist, and pessimists were happy with another pessimist or an optimist.
The authors write:
“…optimists may perceive a pessimistic partner as a burden, which may in turn affect their perceptions of relationship quality negatively.
Interestingly, this was not the case for pessimists, who reported the same levels of relationship quality regardless of whether they perceived their partners as pessimistic or as optimistic.”
The results support a psychological theory about interpersonal attraction called the ‘similarity-attraction hypothesis’.
The study’s authors write:
“Such a similarity attraction effect has been shown to be characteristic in the field of attitudes.
The similarity-attraction hypothesis claims that people tend to perceive others who are similar to themselves as more attractive than dissimilar others.”
The study was published in The Journal of Positive Psychology (Böhm et al., 2010).
There are 3 critical factors to getting a truthful answer to a sensitive question.
Psychologists call this slightly weird phenomenon ‘spontaneous trait transference’.
Psychologists call this slightly weird phenomenon ‘spontaneous trait transference’.
Saying nice things about others when talking to an acquaintance reflects positively on your own personality, research finds.
If you describe another person as genuine and kind, your acquaintance will assume that you are genuine and kind.
The nice things you say about others are transferred to yourself.
So, to make the person you are speaking to like you more, say nice things about others.
On the other hand, bitching makes people think you have these negative traits.
It reflects the old saying that if you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.
Psychologists call this slightly weird phenomenon ‘spontaneous trait transference’.
The effect is so strong that it even works when people know that the traits do not describe you.
For example, let’s say I am a nice person and my friend knows it.
Then I start describing another person who is a cheat and a liar.
Just this will be enough to start the person I am talking to thinking that I am a cheat and a liar — even though they know I am not!
Of course, this makes no sense.
But, the reason it happens is not logical, it is down to a purely mindless associative process.
The study’s authors write:
“…trait transference is not simply a tendency to attribute negative characteristics to those who disparage others, or to ascribe positive characteristics to those who compliment others.
Rather, communicators are ascribed the very traits implied by their descriptions of others.”
The conclusions come from a set of four studies involving hundreds of people.
Participants watched a video in which another person talked about themselves or an acquaintance.
The results showed that participants reliably transferred the traits people described in others onto the person who was speaking.
The authors conclude that:
“It suggests that gossip and other forms of social discourse may have rather surprising, and often unintended, implications for a communicator.
Thus, it supports the cliche that if one cannot say something nice about someone, one ought not to say anything at all.
It also indicates that self presenters may achieve desired trait attributions merely by talking about others who have the desired traits.”
The study was published in the journal Attitudes and Social Cognition (Skowronski et al., 1998).
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