Interpersonal Attraction

Interpersonal Attraction Klohen, Eva C. & Shanghong Lao. (2003) "Interpersonal Attraction and Personality." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 85. No 4, 709-722.

Although the 'rules' of interpersonal attraction, or the mysterious process and reasons that we are attracted to certain individuals and not to others, are often obfuscated by romantic language, the authors of this article attempt to clarify the data that does exist as to whether opposites do indeed attract, or if we seek someone like ourselves, someone like our ideal self, and if security of reciprocal attachment is more important than other factors in attachment.

One of the most interesting studies cited early on by the authors, and critical in shaping the dynamics of their own study, is a personality evaluation of different attraction patterns, as performed by Bartholomew and Horowitz. This study attempted to break down different attachment styles and patterns into four different categories, based on the degrees of manifested anxiety or avoidance.

Bartholomew and Horowitz characterized attachment behavior patterns as secure, preoccupied, fearful, or dismissive Individuals with secure sense of self were both less anxious and avoidant, fearful individuals are both anxious yet avoidant because of fears of rejection, in contrast to anxiously preoccupied individuals that obsess over rejection and clung to relationships -- and both stood in contrast to the dismissive types who scored high on avoidance and low on anxiety.

(710) Bartholomew's and Horowitz's study provided an important nuance in analyzing whether people prefer partners who are more like themselves or complementary to themselves. Instead, Bartholomew's and Horowitz's categorization suggests one's own sense of self-worth and anxiety about relationships may affect one's choice of a partner, as well as one's decision to seek out someone who is like or unlike one's self in terms of attachment style, or to avoid relationships altogether. The authors of the article discovered that all personality types preferred a secure attachment pattern to the other types.

(718-719) To a lesser degree, an avoidant pattern was preferred least often. Different attachment styles showed more or less avoidant or negative or positive reactions to the other attachment patterns. In general, dissimilar attraction patterns promoted rejection in the other attachment style categories.

However, when isolating the variables of avoidance and anxiety, while low levels of both were universally preferred, the variable of avoidance was a clearer predictor of attraction or non-attraction -- in short, rather than the personality trait of anxiety, the more behavior-based responsiveness of how open the person was to a relationship, was more of a determining factor in attraction.

(719) This revelation may be tied to the study's stress that perceived traits rather than 'actual' traits were more influential in determining initial desire, and a partner's relative levels of anxiety were more difficult to detect than how much the potential partner makes him or herself available. One surprising variable not taken into consideration in the study was that of gender. Might, for example, fearful females be more socially acceptable as partners, because.