Interpersonal Attraction

Impersonal Influences

Attraction depends in part on one's current desire to affiliate with others, and potential partners who would ordinarily be desirable may seem less appealing when one wishes to be alone. Alternatively, any partner is sometimes better than no partner at all, and we may occasionally pursue the company of others who would not be highly sought after in better circumstances. Adverse conditions that induce confusion or fear make the presence of others more comforting, whereas embarrassing circumstances have the opposite effect—and any of us may encounter such conditions from time to time.

In fact, any event that gets a rise out of us may influence our attraction to others. Anything that “turns us on”—that is, that causes physical activation and arousal—seems to intensify our evaluative reactions to the people we encounter. When our hearts are racing and we are breathing hard, whether as a result of robust laughter, strong trepidation, or simply strenuous exercise, we find lovely people to be more desirable than they seem when we are at rest. Unattractive people seem more un desirable when we are aroused, as well. Thus, diverse experiences that have nothing to do with a particular partner can influence our attraction to him or her.

One of the most striking examples of impersonal influences on attraction, however, is the role of physical proximity in encouraging new relationships. Obviously, in order to be attracted to others, we have to meet them, and that is more likely to happen if they are often nearby. Various Web sites may provide ways of making contact with others in remote locations, but—everything else being equal—we tend to like those who live and work near us more than those who are larger distances away. This pattern is so striking that when college students are assigned seats in their classrooms, they are much more likely to become friends with the people who end up sitting near them than with others sitting just a few feet farther away.

There appear to be two major reasons that proximity is important: familiarity and convenience. The more often we encounter others, the more familiar they become, and that usually leads us to like them better. If they are pleasant people, familiarity does not breed contempt; people we recognize trigger fonder feelings than strangers do. Partners who are close at hand are also more convenient than are those who are far away, offering richer rewards that are more easily obtained. Longdistance relationships are typically less rewarding than they would be closer to home, so absence does not ordinarily make the heart grow fonder.

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