Reciprocity of Liking

Theoretical Explanations

Many major social-psychological theories predict the emergence of reciprocity of liking. When our interaction partners like us, they treat us in ways that maximize our rewards and minimize our costs. Interdependence Theory predicts that we will like people with whom we have such gratifying interactions. Indeed, the simple fact that another person likes the self is rewarding because it validates that the self has likable qualities. In addition, people who like us often want to continue interacting with us in the future. Therefore, they may reward us by providing costly support in times of need, assuming that we ourselves might later reciprocate the support. In this sense, liking and helping are linked, and social exchange theorists suggest that, because individuals tend to reciprocate helping behaviors, this tendency should extend to the reciprocation of other benefits such as liking.

Balance theory, which emphasizes people's desire to maintain a cognitively consistent state, also predicts the emergence of reciprocity, at least for people who like themselves. That is, cognitive consistency is achieved when self-likers like those who like them. Intriguingly, cognitive consistency is also achieved when self-dislikers like people who dislike them. Reciprocal liking should therefore be less pronounced for individuals with low self-esteem, and, in fact, some evidence for this prediction has been found among married couples.

Finally, when someone likes us, it signals his or her willingness to provide care and support; Attachment Theory predicts that we will like such supportive individuals and provide care and support for them in turn. There is no shortage of theoretical explanations for the existence of reciprocity of liking.

Experimental Evidence

Researchers have tackled two central empirical questions regarding reciprocity of liking. The first question is causal: If A expresses liking for B, does this cause B's liking for A to increase? Psychologists first derived support for this prediction almost half a century ago. In an initial study, participants were led to believe in advance of a group discussion that certain members of the group (chosen at random by the experimenter) would probably like them. After the discussion, participants expressed more liking for the group members who they believed liked them. Other research found evidence for this causal pathway using the bogus stranger paradigm, in which participants did not meet face to face, but instead viewed questionnaire responses from another “participant.” Participants' liking for such an unknown stranger correlates positively with the amount of liking the [Page 1334]stranger expresses for the participant on the questionnaire. In addition, the more attractive the stranger is, the greater the impact that stranger's liking has on participants' reciprocated desire. That is, when we find out that an attractive person likes us, we are especially likely to reciprocate that liking. Finally, there is also evidence that lik-ers (i.e., people who like others, in general) are themselves well liked by participants. In studies in which targets express liking for many other individuals (e.g., politicians, cafeteria workers), participants tend to like those targets more than targets who express liking for few other individuals. In general, the experimental data support the prediction that liking causes liking: We do indeed like people more when we learn or infer that they might like us.

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