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The Psychology Behind Human Attraction: Do Pheromones Play a Role?

The Psychology Behind Human Attraction: Do Pheromones Play a Role?

The post is developed in partnership with BetterHelp.

When we see someone appealing, our pulse quickens and our body temperature rises. Attraction is like a wave that sweeps over us, forceful and nearly uncontrollable. Is that true, though? Is it possible to choose who we are attracted to?

Positive feelings about another person are referred to as interpersonal attraction. Likeness, love, friendship, lust, and admiration are just a few examples of this phenomenon. Let’s take a look at what it takes to find someone attractive:

External Factors That Influence Attraction

Physical Attractiveness

Research suggests that physical attractiveness is the most important factor in romantic attraction. People are more attracted to partners who they regard to be physically beautiful in the early stages of dating. Men are more inclined than women to prioritize physical appearance. In romantic love, people’s perceptions of their own physical attractiveness play a role. According to the Matching Hypothesis, people choose partners who are roughly equal in attractiveness to themselves.

Proximity

People who live close to each other are more likely to become friends. The mere exposure effect is one possible explanation. The Mere Exposure Effect describes how people are more likely to prefer novel stimuli if they are exposed to them frequently.

Similarity

People choose mates who share attributes such as age, race, religion, socioeconomic class, personality, education, IQ, and attitude with them. This resemblance can be found amongst friends as well as romantic partners. According to some experts, attraction is based on similarities. Others admit that people are more likely to have friends and lovers who are similar to them simply because they are more accessible: people are more willing to associate with people who are similar to them.

Reciprocity

People are more likely to like others who like them back.

Biological Determinants of Attraction

Excitement and Adrenaline

The Love Bridge research discovered a link between arousal and attraction. In this experiment, psychologists Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron had 85 men walk across a dreadful suspension bridge or a solid standard bridge.

A female interviewer approached the men on the bridge and asked them to fill out questionnaires in reaction to photographs. She gave out her phone number after each interview. People who were on the terrifying bridge were far more likely to phone and include sexual information and imagery in their questionnaire responses. This is an example of arousal misattribution.

To put it another way, they were ecstatic about something, and that other was there to project their ecstasy upon. In retrospect, it’s more likely that the males simply remembered being eager and then seeing a beautiful woman.

A photo of a fairly attractive individual was shown to people getting on or off a roller coaster in another trial. They asked the participants to judge the photo on its attractiveness and dating potential. They were also asked to rate the attractiveness of their seatmate. People exiting the roller coaster gave their seatmates a higher attractiveness rating than those entering the roller coaster.

Natural Body Odor

Studies have discovered that, in addition to adrenaline, smell plays a part in attraction.

Women, for example, picked the shirts of guys whose genes indicated that their immune systems were different from their own after being asked to smell different t-shirts worn by men. Then there’s the case for pheromones, which are a type of natural fragrance produced by your body. You can learn more about the effects of pheromones here.

Psychological Determinants of Attraction

Mood

People are drawn to partners who are mentally similar to themselves, and your mood might influence how much you like someone. For example, if you’ve just heard good news, you’re more inclined than usual to like the next person you encounter. This can have an impact on whether or not you develop feelings for someone.

Values, Attachment Style, and Emotions

Attraction is also influenced by attachment styles. We are drawn to people who will mirror and reinforce our beliefs and expectations about caring, trust, abandonment, reliance, support, intimacy, and vulnerability.

Persons look for partners that share their values and ideas, as well as people in similar stages of life. Another study backed up the assumption that people are drawn to persons who are similar to them. People were more drawn to persons whose feelings and motivations were similar to their own.

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