Essay Example Dedicated to the Psychology of Physical Attraction

The science of attraction

This can be described or defined as the degree to which a person's physical features or appearance are to be considered aesthetically pleasing to the other person looking at them or beautiful. In most cases, this term implies sexual attractiveness or desirability but both concepts can stand out independently from each other. Different articles have focused a lot on physical attraction and in this paper, we will look at several of the articles including; The Value of Physical Attractiveness in Romantic Partners: Modeling Biological and Social Variables, Physical attraction, attachment styles, and dating development and the final article is Importance of Physical Attractiveness in Dating Behavior. From all these articles Physical attractiveness is explained to have a connection with how different humans interact and socialize with other different people and also determine who to expect a person to end up dating, try to date or the person one would like to have as a partner who satisfies their social desires and more (Walster et al. 1966). Also, all the articles try to cover the connection between sexual desires in the human being in relation to physical attractiveness where for instance personal attributes such as height, gender and self-perception are important in determining how individuals value physical attractiveness in their romantic partners.

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In this research, it is clearly realizable that the topic on physical attraction is directly connected with the unit on social psychology. Social psychology well defined as a branch of psychology which handles or deals with the social interactions among people including their origins and the effect on other individuals. From the articles and the understanding of physical attraction, we find out that this has a serious effect on who to associate with socially or even date in the process hence making physical attraction a topic directly linked with social psychology (Smith et al., 2014). From the articles, we also find out that both have a common definition to what leads to sexual partner selection among humans. All the articles argue that sexual attraction is connected to physical attraction hence linking all the articles together. Humans socially need to interact with each other and in the process end up forming different connections with one another which end up into dating or lifetime partners which is a mating processes among humans as clearly realized from the articles. This is a very important thing among humans hence making the topic very sensitive and an important topic to cover extensively, since we fall under humans being and also in most cases we have found ourselves attracted to different people at different times or even in several occasions.

Physical attraction psychology

From the research, it is realizable that all the articles tend to agree on the fact that physical attraction has a direct connection with how people chose who to interact with or who to date and this from my point of view is correct. I tend to concur with all articles and the finding in them based on my research and more importantly personal experiences. To me, physical attraction with an opposite gender is the connection which clearly brings out situations such as dating where the first one has to be physically attracted to the other person for any sexual attraction to arise (Jonason, 2009). But also a thing worth mentioning is that from time to time when it comes to social relations one may be physically attracted to the other person but after an interaction with the person, the attraction may end due to other traits harbored within the person. Yes, physical attraction creates a connection among different people but a much interaction between the people determines whether the relationship is to last. Also, people have different taste when it comes to physical attraction. One may be attracted to things such as tall, athletic person while the other person is not attracted to such physical features (Poulsen et al., 2013). But from the articles, it is totally convincing that physical attraction determines the nature of relationships formed. This has been explained by the ‘Computer Dance' an experiment from the article Importance of physical attraction in Dating behavior. In this exercise individuals were picked at random and paired with each other at a computer dance then a number of things were like after the experience home much did the subjects want to date the partners again or how often did the subject ask the partner out for another date. Some of these exercises make it more convincing that physical attraction leads to the formation of relationships among humans hence making the debate at hand hard to convince otherwise.

A real life experience to support this work is a look at a personal life experience. My firs relationship which led to my first kiss was as a result of physical attraction to my partner back then. I was so attracted to the person’s physical appearance starting with their height, the color of their eyes and hair. All this was based on the physical appearance and the things that led to the relationship happening in the first place (Poulsen et al., 2013). This is an experience shared by many not just me hence this tends to support the position in which these articles stand in relation to physical attraction and individual association or dating among themselves. There are other theories from the articles which help explain this betters, things such as sexual propagation among human species which is entirely dependent on physical attraction. The mate selection is completely dependent on the physical attraction concept. The attachment theory as covered by Hazan and Diamond indicates that physical attraction and attachment of two indicators of the attachment viability which includes both attachment viability and attachment avoidance would be and indicator of a romantic relationship.

How does attraction work

From the study this issue in relation to physical attraction is very important sine it is a topic experienced by every human hence the understand of the concept would help a lot in the decisions most of us make in our daily life. The main point of the articles being a clear understanding of what physical attraction is and what results from physical attraction. The impact it has on humans both socially and matters such as relation and interaction. From the articles, we also get to understand their claims such as the impact of physical attraction. Things such as relationship romance, partner selection stage and personal perspective on personal image. From my understanding of the topic appreciation of personal physical attraction leads to self-confidence in different situations which is worth mentioning within the research. Self-confidence gives way too many opportunities. The reassurance by another person of the different physical attractive feature raises personal esteem in many cases.

After covering the authors of these articles main claims, it is worth to mention that my personal understanding of what physical appearance is and also improved on understanding most of the things that happen due to physical attraction (Poulsen et al., 2013). Also, the study has helped understand that physical attraction is the first phase in a relationship which is the basis for the establishment of the relationship and all this totally fits my daily life experiences and observations. For someone to engage themselves in any relationship first there need to be a physical attraction between them before they can move on to the other phases within the relationship. Throughout the study, something that was worth focus on but did not get much attention is what physical attraction has on the person analyzed. Mentioned earlier in the research appreciation of once physical attraction attributes such as height, color of the eyes ends up giving once self -esteem a boost. This is an issue worth mentioning. The Limitation of the study being that you can hardly explain why one person is attracted to some physical attractive attribute of one person while another person is not attracted to the same attributes as the previous one. This leads to the saying ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.’ Conclusively the entire study has been a huge learning experience of one commonly known experience that most of us take time to study and get to understand. The articles have done quite an impressive job enlightening us on the field of physical attraction.

References

Jonason, P. K. (2009). The value of physical attractiveness in romantic partners: Modeling biological and social variables. The Journal of social psychology, 149(2), 229-240.

Poulsen, F. O., Holman, T. B., Busby, D. M., & Carroll, J. S. (2013). Physical attraction, attachment styles, and dating development. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30(3), 301-319.

Smith, E. R., Mackie, D. M., & Claypool, H. M. (2014). Social psychology. Psychology Press.

Walster, E., Aronson, V., Abrahams, D., & Rottman, L. (1966). Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology, 4(5), 508.