Reciprocal liking

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Reciprocal liking, also known as reciprocity of attraction, [1] is the act of a person feeling an attraction to someone only upon learning or becoming aware of that person's attraction to themselves. Reciprocal liking has a significant impact on human attraction and the formation of relationships. [2] People that reciprocally have a liking for each other typically initiate or develop a friendship or romantic relationship. Feelings of admiration, affection, love, and respect are characteristics for reciprocal liking between the two individuals. [3] When there is reciprocal liking there is strong mutual attraction or strong mutual liking, but with others there is not. The feelings of warmth and intimacy also play a role. The consideration and desire to spend time with one another is another strong indicator for reciprocal liking. [4]

Contents

Factors influencing interpersonal attraction Factors influencing Interpersonal attraction.svg
Factors influencing interpersonal attraction

Early studies

Studies in psychology show that people tend to like the people that like them. For example, in an early psychological study the participants subtly found out that a stranger liked them. Elliot Aronson and Phillip Worchel conducted the study, which required pairs of participants to have a simple conversation with one another. After the conversation, they privately rated how much they liked their partners. [5] However, one of the individuals in each of the pairs was not actually part of the experiment, but instead was someone working with the researchers, acting as if they were a participant. Each conversation in the study occurred between a real participant and a trained actor. After their conversation, the participants were asked to write a brief statement about what they thought of their partner. After they had written these statements, the experimenters allowed them to read what their respective partners had written. Once the participants had read that their partners liked them, they then reported liking their partners more than when they had read that their partners did not like them. [6]

Attraction and relationships

Attraction is a process in which two people interact, one person transmits verbal, visual, or other stimuli, and on the other hand, the other person responds more or less positively to the stimuli. [7] Reciprocal liking can affect our choice of whom we have relationships with, including romantic, sexual, and platonic. [2] According to the reciprocity principle, people tend to favor the potential partners who return the interest. [8] Experts have claimed that when people select potential mates, they look for someone whose status, physical attractiveness, and personal qualities are about the same as their own. According to a theory, a person will select a potential partner who will better his or her self-image or persona. Researchers acknowledge a set of flirting behaviors, that have been employed by both sexes to attract each other. Conversations that are started by romantic attraction are typically light and include laughter. [9] There have been years of research that have established many principles of attraction, one being an experiment by Aron and his colleagues, conducted in 1989, that found that most people repeatedly mentioned reciprocal liking, personality, and appearance as factors that influenced them to fall in love. [10] People are naturally more attracted to those who express positive emotions towards them and simply knowing that someone is attracted to them can induce this reciprocal interest. [11]

Reciprocal liking can be indicated non-verbally, [12] such as through body languages (for example maintaining eye contact or leaning forward). Reciprocal liking and desirability of a person appear to be the most influential when falling in love. [13] Aron et Al (1989) reported that in their sample of Canadian college students who recently fell in love, approximately 90% of them mentioned some indicator of thinking that the other person was attracted to them and the study also showed that maintaining eye contact was the most common clue. It has also been shown that people often flatter and praise people whose favour they are trying to win, and people said that they even modify their self-presentation to better fit the expectations or preferences of the person to whom they are attracted, or from whom they are seeking attention or affection. [14]

Reciprocal liking has been observed in schools, and amongst the younger generation in general. For example, children evaluate their peers' behaviours, relationships, and interactions and then construct their own interpretations. [15] Students tend to choose friends that are similar to themselves, meaning those who share the same likes and interests. There are two psychological reasons as to why this seems to happen, the first being social pressure and the other being the set of assumptions people tend to make about those who are similar to themselves. [16] Students are often socially pressured to form friendships depending on the person's age, gender, social class, or racial-ethnic background. [15] Parents and other adults involved in a child's life can also have a large influence on the friendships that children choose to have, this being because they teach children to select "appropriate" friends who will not pass on bad morals or inappropriate traits.

Self-esteem

A person's self-esteem also has a significant impact on the frequency and mannerisms of reciprocal liking. While those with positive self-esteem respond to reciprocal liking, those with negative self-esteem seem to prefer working with people who are critical of them. [17] Nathaniel Branden stated that "self-esteem creates a set of implicit expectations about what is possible and appropriate to us", and further said that "one's reality confirms and strengthens one's original belief". [18] This explains why self-esteem plays a role in reciprocal liking. [19]

Cultural influences

People from different cultures can experience and understand different effects of reciprocal liking since some people take in verbal or non-verbal communication differently due to their cultural backgrounds. In high-context cultures (HCC) and low-context cultures (LCC), this can have an impact on how people perceive others depending on a number of factors to do with how they grew up. [20] In HCCs, such as China and Korea, people tend to use vague and ambiguous language, while in LCCs people will be clear and direct in their communication. These two types of cultures can have an effect on reciprocal liking because if one person from each of these two cultures were to be conversing, the person from an LCC might believe that the person from an HCC does not like them due to the fact that they are using ambiguous language while speaking. As a result, the person from a low-context culture may conclude that their high-context culture conversation partner dislikes them, and following the rules of reciprocal liking, they will return this dislike or disinterest.[ citation needed ]

Culture plays a particular role in reciprocal liking, and cultures that operate independently from other cultures is also an important factor for individuals reciprocally liking each other. Goals of personal fulfillment and emotional intimacy in relationships are often a principal in independent cultures. An example of this may be that love should be the primary basis for two people to get married. [21] The ethic of reciprocal liking is adopted by nearly every major religion, and if this were to stop human culture would not be able to prosper because people routinely exchange goods, services, and other things with one another. [22] On the other hand, it has been proven that there seems to be no signs of romantic love in some cultures such as some non-western countries based on anthropologists and historians. [23]

Social media

Reciprocal liking can also refer to the act of a user liking a social media post, image or article from a different user who initially liked the first user's content. This is often to return the act of kindness. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

In social psychology, an interpersonal relation describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more persons. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which are the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences. Relations vary in degrees of intimacy, self-disclosure, duration, reciprocity, and power distribution. The main themes or trends of the interpersonal relations are: family, kinship, friendship, love, marriage, business, employment, clubs, neighborhoods, ethical values, support and solidarity. Interpersonal relations may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and societies. They appear when people communicate or act with each other within specific social contexts, and they thrive on equitable and reciprocal compromises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jealousy</span> Emotion

Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual attraction</span> Attraction on the basis of sexual desire

Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual's ability to attract other people sexually, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context where they appear. The attraction may be to a person's aesthetics, movements, voice, or smell, among other things. The attraction may be enhanced by a person's adornments, clothing, perfume or hair style. It can be influenced by individual genetic, psychological, or cultural factors, or to other, more amorphous qualities. Sexual attraction is also a response to another person that depends on a combination of the person possessing the traits and on the criteria of the person who is attracted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romance (love)</span> Type of love that focuses on feelings

Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.

A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner. It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and efforts, but ascribe failure to external factors. When individuals reject the validity of negative feedback, focus on their strengths and achievements but overlook their faults and failures, or take more credit for their group's work than they give to other members, they are protecting their self-esteem from threat and injury. These cognitive and perceptual tendencies perpetuate illusions and error, but they also serve the self's need for esteem. For example, a student who attributes earning a good grade on an exam to their own intelligence and preparation but attributes earning a poor grade to the teacher's poor teaching ability or unfair test questions might be exhibiting a self-serving bias. Studies have shown that similar attributions are made in various situations, such as the workplace, interpersonal relationships, sports, and consumer decisions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friend zone</span> Inability to move from a platonic relationship into a romantic one

In popular culture, the friend zone is a relational concept, describing a situation in which one person in a mutual friendship wishes to enter into a romantic or sexual relationship with the other person, while the other does not. The person whose romantic advances were rejected is then said to have "entered" the friend zone, with the sense that they are stuck there. The friendzone has a strong presence on the Internet; for example, on Facebook, dating sites, and other social media platforms. However, over time the term has expanded into middle schools, high schools, and colleges where young people are discovering their identities when it comes to dating and romance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social exchange theory</span> Generalization theory explaining social behaviour regarding society and economics

Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory that studies the social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement a cost-benefit analysis to determine risks and benefits. The theory also involves economic relationships—the cost-benefit analysis occurs when each party has goods that the other parties value. Social exchange theory suggests that these calculations occur in romantic relationships, friendships, professional relationships, and ephemeral relationships as simple as exchanging words with a customer at the cash register. Social exchange theory says that if the costs of the relationship are higher than the rewards, such as if a lot of effort or money were put into a relationship and not reciprocated, then the relationship may be terminated or abandoned.

Interpersonal attraction, as a part of social psychology, is the study of the attraction between people which leads to the development of platonic or romantic relationships. It is distinct from perceptions such as physical attractiveness, and involves views of what is and what is not considered beautiful or attractive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intimate relationship</span> Physical or emotional intimacy

An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves emotional or physical closeness between people and may include sexual intimacy and feelings of romance or love. Intimate relationships are interdependent, and the members of the relationship mutually influence each other. The quality and nature of the relationship depends on the interactions between individuals, and is derived from the unique context and history that builds between people over time. Social and legal institutions such as marriage acknowledge and uphold intimate relationships between people. However, intimate relationships are not necessarily monogamous or sexual, and there is wide social and cultural variability in the norms and practices of intimacy between people.

In social psychology, reciprocity is a social norm of responding to a positive action with another positive action, rewarding kind actions. As a social construct, reciprocity means that in response to friendly actions, people are frequently much nicer and much more cooperative than predicted by the self-interest model; conversely, in response to hostile actions they are frequently much more nasty and even brutal. It has also been called reciprocity bias.

The norm of reciprocity requires that people repay in kind what others have done for them. It can be understood as the expectation that people will respond to each other by returning benefits for benefits, and with either indifference or hostility to harms. The social norm of reciprocity may take different forms in different areas of social life, or in different societies. This is distinct from related ideas such as gratitude, the Golden Rule, or mutual goodwill. See reciprocity for an analysis of the concepts involved.

The uncertainty reduction theory, also known as initial interaction theory, developed in 1975 by Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese, is a communication theory from the post-positivist tradition. It is one of the few communication theories that specifically looks into the initial interaction between people prior to the actual communication process. Uncertainty reduction theory originators main goal when constructing it was to explain how communication is used to reduce uncertainty between strangers during a first interaction. Uncertainty reduction theory claims that everyone activates two processes in order to reduce uncertainty. The first being a proactive process, which focuses on what someone might do. The second being a retroactive process, which focuses on how people understand what another does or says. This theory's main claim is that people must receive information about another party in order to reduce their uncertainty and, that people want to do so. While uncertainty reduction theory claims that communication will lead to reduced uncertainty, it is important to note that this is not always the case. Dr. Dale E. Brashers of the University of Illinois argues that in some scenarios, more communication may lead to greater uncertainty.

Self-disclosure is a process of communication by which one person reveals information about themselves to another. The information can be descriptive or evaluative, and can include thoughts, feelings, aspirations, goals, failures, successes, fears, and dreams, as well as one's likes, dislikes, and favorites.

The social penetration theory (SPT) proposes that as relationships develop, interpersonal communication moves from relatively shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper, more intimate ones. The theory was formulated by psychologists Irwin Altman of the University of Utah and Dalmas Taylor of the University of Delaware in 1973 to understand relationship development between individuals. Altman and Taylor noted that relationships "involve different levels of intimacy of exchange or degree of social penetration". SPT is known as an objective theory as opposed to an interpretive theory, meaning it is based on data drawn from actual experiments and not simply from conclusions based on individuals' specific experiences.

The need for affiliation (N-Affil) is a term that was popularized by David McClelland and describes a person's need to feel a sense of involvement and "belonging" within a social group; McClelland's thinking was strongly influenced by the pioneering work of Henry Murray who first identified underlying psychological human needs and motivational processes (1938). It was Murray who set out a classification of needs, including achievement, power and affiliation—and placed these in the context of an integrated motivational model. People with a high need for affiliation require warm interpersonal relationships and approval from those with whom they have regular contact. Having a strong bond with others make a person feel as if they are a part of something important that creates a powerful impact. People who place high emphasis on affiliation tend to be supportive team members, but may be less effective in leadership positions. A person who takes part in a group, whether it be a movement or project, helps create a push towards a sense of achievement and satisfaction for the individual and the whole.

The social norm of reciprocity is the expectation that people will respond to each other in similar ways—responding to gifts and kindnesses from others with similar benevolence of their own, and responding to harmful, hurtful acts from others with either indifference or some form of retaliation. Such norms can be crude and mechanical, such as a literal reading of the eye-for-an-eye rule lex talionis, or they can be complex and sophisticated, such as a subtle understanding of how anonymous donations to an international organization can be a form of reciprocity for the receipt of very personal benefits, such as the love of a parent.

Theories of love can refer to several psychological and sociological theories:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colour wheel theory of love</span> The six love styles created by John Alan Lee

The colour wheel theory of love is an idea created by the Canadian psychologist John Alan Lee that describes six love styles, using several Latin and Greek words for love. First introduced in his book Colours of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving (1973), Lee defines three primary, three secondary, and nine tertiary love styles, describing them in the traditional colour wheel. The three primary types are called Eros, Ludus, and Storge, and the three secondary types are called Mania, Pragma, and Agape.

Sandra L. Murray is Professor of Psychology at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is a social psychologist known for her work on close relationships and their trajectories over time. Murray received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology in 2003 for "distinguished and original contributions to an understanding of motivated social cognition in relationships." Other awards include the New Contribution Award from the International Society for the Study of Personal Relationships in 1998 and 2000, the Outstanding Early Career Award from the International Society for Self and Identity in 2000, the Career Trajectory Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology in 2012, the Mid-Career Distinguished Contribution Award from the International Association for Relationship Research in 2016, and the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2020.

The liking gap is the disparity between how much a person believes that another person likes them, and that other person's actual opinion. Studies have found that most people underestimate how much other people like them and enjoy their company.

References

  1. ↑ Eastwick, Paul W. Encyclopedia of Human Relationships. pp. 1333–1336.
  2. 1 2 Trivers, Robert L (1971). "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 46: 35–57. doi:10.1086/406755. S2CID   19027999.
  3. ↑ "LINCCWeb Catalog Search". www.linccweb.org. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  4. ↑ "LINCCWeb Catalog Search". www.linccweb.org. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  5. ↑ "Reciprocal Liking: People Like You More When You Like Them". Social Psych Online. June 6, 2015.
  6. ↑ "How reciprocal liking massively influences people to like you". The Dirt Psychology. 2015-04-24. Retrieved 2019-01-25.
  7. ↑ "ATTRACTION | International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family - Credo Reference". search.credoreference.com. Retrieved 2019-11-28.
  8. ↑ Luo, Shanhong; Zhang, Guangjian (August 2009). "What Leads to Romantic Attraction: Similarity, Reciprocity, Security, or Beauty? Evidence From a Speed-Dating Study". Journal of Personality. 77 (4): 937–939. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00570.x. PMID   19558447.
  9. ↑ "LINCCWeb Catalog Search". www.linccweb.org. Retrieved 2019-11-28.
  10. ↑ Sternberg, Karin (2013). "Cultural Theories of Love". Psychology of Love 101. doi:10.1891/9780826109361.0004. ISBN   978-0-8261-0935-4.
  11. ↑ Ponzetti Jr., James J. (2003). "Attraction". International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family.
  12. ↑ Grammer, Kruck, and Magnusson 1998
  13. ↑ Vangelisti, Anita L. (2006). Vangelisti, Anita L; Perlman, Daniel (eds.). "Romantic Love". Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511606632. ISBN   9780511606632.
  14. ↑ Roeckelein, Jon E. (2006). "Love, Theories Of". Elsevier's Dictionary of Psychological Theories.
  15. 1 2 Bank, Barbara J. (2007). "Peer Cultures and Friendships". Gender and Education: An Encyclopedia.
  16. ↑ Vangelisti, Anita L.; Periman, Daniel (2006). Vangelisti, Anita L; Perlman, Daniel (eds.). "Self-Disclosure in Personal Relationships". Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511606632. ISBN   9780511606632.
  17. ↑ Swann, W. B. Jr.; Wenzlaff, R. M.; Tafarodi, R. W. (1992). "Depression and the search for negative evaluations: More evidence of the role of self-verification strivings". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 101 (2): 314–371. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.101.2.314. PMID   1583225.
  18. ↑ Branden, Nethaniel (1994). The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. New York: Bantam Books. p. 14. ISBN   0553374397.
  19. ↑ Young, Jeffrey (1994). Reinventing Your Life . New York: Penguin. pp.  211–212. ISBN   0452272041.
  20. ↑ Mccornack, Steven; Ortiz, Joseph. Choices and Connections (2nd ed.). pp. 98–100.
  21. ↑ Rella, Suzanne (2010). "Journal of Social and Personal Relationships". Suny Main Library: 476 – via Sage.
  22. ↑ Eastwick, Paul W.; Finkel, Eli J. (2009). "Reciprocity of Liking". Encyclopedia of Human Relationships: 1333–1336.
  23. ↑ "LINCCWeb Catalog Search". www.linccweb.org. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  24. ↑ "Activating the Law of Reciprocity in Social Media". 2019-09-23.
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