Reward theory of attraction

The reward theory of attraction states that people are attracted to individuals exhibiting behaviors that are rewarding to them, whom they associate with rewarding events, or have positive, fulfilling interactions with. ^{[1] [2]}

Reward theory was originally developed in the research on interpersonal attraction of the 1960s, a precursor to modern romantic love research. ^{[3] [4]} In this early context, "attraction" was often defined as "a positive attitude towards a particular person". ^[5] Romantic love science was not explicitly studied yet in this period of history; the subject was even considered "taboo" for research. ^{[4] [6] [7]}

Attraction was initially conceived of as a continuum, with liking being a "mild" form of attraction at one end, and romantic love being a "strong" attraction at the other end. This idea of a continuum started to change in 1970, when Zick Rubin published his distinction between "liking" and "loving". ^{[8] [4]} A later distinction was made by Elaine Hatfield between "passionate" and "companionate" love. ^{[9] [10]} Passionate love is "a state of intense longing for another" which involves incentive salience ("wanting", or what is attention-grabbing). ^{[10] [11] [12]} Companionate love is "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined" (or "strong liking"). ^{[10] [4]}

A successor to reward theory is the self-expansion model by Arthur & Elaine Aron in 1986, which conceptualizes reward as "whatever creates expansion of the self". ^{[13] [14]} Like reward theory, self-expansion encompasses "mini-theories" of falling in love and long-term relationships, and has been used to explain the process behind "strong attractions" like passionate love, and Dorothy Tennov's concept of limerence. ^{[14] [15]}

Another major variant of reward theory was social exchange theory. ^{[4] [16]}

A separate area of research was impression formation, which studied those impressions based on knowledge (i.e. information), rather than the emotional reactions (i.e. affect) studied by interpersonal attraction. ^[17]

Predictors

Early interpersonal attraction research identified five major predictors of "attraction" (defined then as a "positive attitude"). ^[18] In this early paradigm, it was assumed that falling in love occurs with an exceptionally strong instance of one of these. ^[19]

• Similarity (as in "birds of a feather flock together") is an idea dating as far back as Aristotle. The most successful research of this type showed a direct relationship between liking and one's attitudinal agreement on a variety of issues (social, political, or artistic). Studies also demonstrated personality similarity among husbands, wives and friends, although it was unclear to what extent such similarity actually caused attraction. It might also be the case that marriage makes a couple more similar over time, or that such similarity is "more perceived than actual". ^[18]
• Propinquity (similarity of location) has been found to result in attraction. People who are seated together or live nearby tend to become friends, and the mere exposure effect (e.g. being able to glimpse a fellow student, regardless of similarity) has been shown to elicit attraction. ^[18]
• Being liked by a person tends to cause liking towards that person in return, also known as the reciprocal liking rule. A study on falling in love found that a sudden attraction was most frequently associated with a person's discovery of another's attraction to them. As one participant describes, "I met [her] in a department store in which she worked. I was looking for sandals and she recognized me and came over [...]. From that moment on, I thought a lot about her; fantasizing relationships, etc." ^[18]
• Matching of admirable characteristics (e.g. physical attractiveness, good health, youthfulness, intelligence, mental health, general competence, and so on) limits one's attraction to those who also have a similar level of attractiveness, according to a "marketplace of open competition". The matching hypothesis says that a more attractive person might not like a less attractive person, and they would try to "do better" with somebody else. ^[18]
• Social and cultural influences determine who people are likely to meet, who they are allowed to associate with, and what characteristics are viewed as attractive and important. ^[18]

Self-expansion

The self-expansion model summarized

The core of the self-expansion model as we have applied it to love can be oversimplified as the following three principles:

1. People seek to expand the self.
2. One way they seek to do so is by attempting to include others in the self through close relationships.
3. People seek situations and experiences that have become associated with experiences of expansion of the self.

Elaine Aron & Arthur Aron (1996) ^[14]

Inclusion of the other in the self (IOS) is typically measured with the IOS Scale.

Main article: Self-expansion model

A limitation of early reward theory was that it could not predict exactly what is rewarding, only determine it by observation (i.e. with studies). ^[21] To solve this, Arthur & Elaine Aron developed the self-expansion model, which specifies reward as "whatever creates expansion of the self". ^[22] Self-expansion is the human motivation to expand one's physical influence, cognitive complexity, social or bodily identity, and self-awareness. ^[14] Relationships are a key area for self-expansion then, via "inclusion of the other in the self", where aspects of a partner (e.g. traits, skills, attitudes, resources, abilities, and worldviews) are incorporated into one's own self concept. ^{[20] [23]} Self-expansion can also take the form of having new and exciting experiences with a partner. ^[20]

The Arons revise the definition of "attraction" to mean a desire to enter a close relationship, usually reflected in attitudes or behaviors. According to their theory, attraction arises when opportunities for self-expansion are perceived, and so a "positive attitude" towards a person (the earlier definition) is only a "frequent symptom". ^[24] Self-expansion is then used to explain the "strong attraction" of romantic love, including intense varieties of passionate love or limerence, when the rate of expansion is rapid and approaches the maximum total possible from all sources. ^[15] Additionally, self-expansion explains how unrequited love can be a desired experience. ^[14]

Besides romantic love, opportunities for self-expansion include learning, career, family, friendship, athletics, travel, artistic expression, politics, gossip, religion, and the experience of nature. ^[14]

The Arons use a value-expectancy approach to determine attraction as the combination of two factors (desirability and probability): ^[14]

1. Perceived degree of potential expansion of self that is possible through a close relationship with that particular other.
2. Perceived probability of actually obtaining that expansion with other—that is, probability that one could actually form and maintain a close relationship with this particular other.

According to the self-expansion model, attraction would actually seem to result from the opposite of the five predictors (because e.g. similarity would actually seem to minimize self-expansion—resulting in less attraction). Therefore, the Arons propose that these are five preconditions which make a relationship possible, whereas attraction according to self-expansion increases when the opposite conditions are present. For example, a person may be attracted to similarity when it provides the basis for effective communication or predictability, whereas differences provide the basis for self-expansion: new challenges, new experiences, new resources, etc. ^[25] The Arons interpret study results (some of which did show dissimilarity was attractive) to mean that in their model, similarity is attractive because it increases the probability of a relationship. If a person believes forming a relationship will be easy, then dissimilarity becomes more attractive for self-expansion. ^{[25] [14]}

Passion seems to decline when interactions with a love object become frequent, showing that both propinquity and distance can facilitate attraction. Accordingly, in the tradition of medieval romance, the love object was always inaccessible, and modern people still seem to be "obsessed with the unknown, mysterious lover". ^[26] The violation of social norms could also be an experience for self-expansion "towards greater autonomy, clearer personal values, new social roles, and the like"—as in "the Romeo and Juliet effect", where parental disapproval seems to enhance romantic love. ^[27]

An fMRI experiment found that neural activity in regions associated with the physical attractiveness of potential alternative romantic partners was diminished when the participants were primed with a recollection of self-expansion in their current relationship. This effect "may be because the current relationship is bolstered by feelings of self-expansion diminishing the relative attractiveness and therefore the incentive salience of alternative partners". ^[28] Low self-expansion in a relationship increases interest in alternatives, and the risk of infidelity. ^[20]

Reinforcement

The mechanics of interpersonal attraction are believed to follow principles of reinforcement and classical conditioning. ^{[29] [30]}

Reinforcement theory distinguishes between several different paradigms: ^[31]

• Positive reinforcement (reward) increases the frequency of a response leading to a desired stimulus. ^{[31] [32] [33]}
• Negative reinforcement also increases the frequency of a response, but with an aversive stimulus which must be removed or avoided. ^{[31] [32] [34]}
• Punishment (different from negative reinforcement) is a painful or unwanted stimulus that decreases the frequency of a response leading to the encounter. ^{[31] [32] [35]}

Classical (or Pavlovian) conditioning is essentially learning by association: when two things happen together, we come to associate them and expect them together. Ivan Pavlov, who developed the theory, is said to have trained dogs to salivate (having an automatic reflex response) at the sound of a bell by repeatedly ringing it when food was delivered. ^{[36] [37]} In this paradigm, a "neutral stimulus" is paired along with a biological stimulus (an "unconditioned stimulus") which elicits a usually innate reflex response (an "unconditioned response") so that when the previously neutral stimulus (now a "conditioned stimulus") is presented again by itself it elicits a new reflex response (a "conditioned response"). ^{[38] [37]}

Law of attraction

As revised by Byrne and Rhamey (1965), the law states that

${\displaystyle Y=m\left[{\frac {\sum (PR\times M)}{\sum (PR\times M)+\sum (NR\times M')}}\right]+k}$

(where Y is the attraction, M and M' are magnitudes and m and k are the slope and Y intercept, respectively), or that attraction toward a person is a positive linear function of the sum of the weighted positive reinforcements (Number × Magnitude) associated with him, divided by the total number of weighted positive and negative reinforcements associated with him.

Gerald Clore & Donn Byrne (1974) ^[39]

In Pavlovian theory, reinforcement is described as this repeated pairing of an unconditioned (or unlearned) stimulus along with a conditioned (or learned) one, which strengthens the association, until eventually the conditioned stimulus elicits the response on its own. ^[40] According to a similar mechanic, liking for a person results when an individual experiences reward in the presence of that person, although regardless of the actual relationship between the person and the rewarding event. The liked person then becomes a secondary reinforcer, meaning if their presence is contingent on a particular behavior, that behavior should be strengthened. ^[30]

The "reinforcement-affect model", developed by Donn Byrne & Gerald Clore, additionally posits that attraction is based on the positive affect which accompanies reinforcement, and that these feelings spread from one stimulus to another via association: ^[29]

(a) a variety of social communications and other interpersonal events can be classed as either reinforcing or punishing; (b) reinforcing events elicit positive affect, while punishing events generate negative affect; (c) stimuli associated with positive or negative affect develop the capacity to evoke that affect; and (d) stimuli that evoke positive affect are liked, while stimuli that evoke negative affect are disliked. Thus, one likes others who reward him because they are associated with one's own good feelings.

The authors also acknowledge a complexity in how this reinforcement functions in everyday situations: "Many of the associations made in the process of attraction development are between words, thoughts, images, or collections, rather than between buzzers, electric shocks, or visceral responses." ^[29]

A variety of studies have been done which support the idea that people who are associated with reinforcement tend to be liked, even if they are not the source of reinforcement. ^{[41] [1]} An experiment by Pawel Lewicki tested "liking by association" by giving participants a choice between two pictured women, asking them which looked friendlier, and the regular outcome was nearly 50-50. However, when the participants had a friendly interaction beforehand with an experimenter who merely looked similar to a woman pictured, the similar-looking woman was chosen with a 6-to-1 margin. When the interaction was unfriendly, the similar-looking woman was nearly always avoided. ^[1] Another experiment found that college students liked a stranger better when evaluating them in a pleasant room as compared to a hot room. ^{[1] [42]}

Neuroscience

Dopamine is produced in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, and projected to the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Dopamine activity in the NAc is key to the attribution of salience.

Further information: Biology of romantic love § Mechanics

"Wanting" versus "liking"

In modern neuroscience, a new distinction is made between "wanting" and "liking", which are dissociable features of rewards. ^{[44] [11] [45]}

• "Wanting" refers to incentive salience, the feature by which cues in an environment become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet", pulling a person towards a reward. ^{[44] [46]} Incentive salience is mediated by dopamine activity in the brain, originating in the ventral tegmental area. ^{[47] [46]} This form of "wanting" is usually marked in quotes, distinguishing it from other (more cognitive) forms of desire involving declarative goals or explicit expectations of future outcomes. ^{[46] [44]}
• "Liking" refers to the pleasurable (or hedonic) aspect of rewards which are consummatory, tied to activity in hedonic hotspots of the brain. ^{[44] [46] [48]}

Research by Helen Fisher and Arthur Aron has now used "attraction" to refer to romantic love, which involves the experience of incentive salience (or "wanting") for a loved one. ^{[49] [11]} Romantic love is conceived of as a motivation or drive (a "desire for union with another") which elicits different emotions depending on the situation, rather than being an emotion itself. ^{[50] [51] [45]} Fisher's taxonomical theory, independent emotion systems, groups a litany of related concepts together (e.g. "being in love", romantic love, passionate love, obsessive love, infatuation, and limerence) under one label of a mammalian "attraction system"—theorized to have evolved for focusing attention on a preferred mating partner. ^{[49] [52] [53]}

The pleasurable (or "liking") aspect of social interactions and romantic love is believed to be related to endogenous opioids, released in hedonic hotspots, according to a long-running theory called the brain opioid theory of social attachment . ^{[48] [53]} "Strong liking" for an intimate partner is called companionate love. ^[4]

The intense, passionate early stage of romantic love is being compared to a behavioral addiction (addiction to a non-substance) where the "substance" is the loved one, because of similar features like craving and obsessionality. ^{[11] [54] [55]} In addiction research, the difference between "wanting" and "liking" is used to explain how an addict can compulsively engage in drug-seeking behaviors, despite when taking the drug no longer results in a high or the addiction becomes detrimental to their life. ^{[44] [11]} They can also irrationally "want" (i.e. feel compelled towards, in the sense of incentive salience) something which they do not cognitively wish for. ^[44]

In a way comparable to addiction, people who are in love may "want" a loved person even when interactions with them are not pleasurable. For example, they may want to contact an ex-partner after a rejection, even when that experience will only be painful. ^[11] It is also possible for a person to be "in love" with somebody they do not like, or who treats them poorly. ^[56]

Partner addiction hypothesis

Romantic love has been compared to cocaine and opioid addiction. ^{[57] [53]}

See also: Love addiction

Falling in love is believed to follow mechanics similar to addiction, although not identically. ^{[55] [54]} One of the major differences is that the trajectories diverge, with the addictive aspects of romantic love tending to disappear over time in an intimate relationship. ^[54]

By comparison, in a drug addiction, the detrimental aspects magnify with repeated drug use, turning into compulsions, a loss of control and a negative emotional state. It has been speculated that the difference could be related to oxytocin activity—present in romantic love, but not in addiction. ^[54] Oxytocin seems to ameliorate the effects of drug withdrawal, and it might inhibit the more long-term, excessive effects of addiction. ^[58]

A number of theories have been proposed for how addictions begin and perpetuate. ^[59] A theory by Wolfram Schultz states that rather than encoding reward per se, dopamine encodes a "reward prediction error" (RPE): the difference between the predicted value of a reward, and the actual value upon receiving it (i.e. whether it was better than, equal to, or worse than expected). ^{[60] [61]} In this theory, RPE is part of a mechanism for reinforcement learning, which associates rewards with the cues which predicted them. An example of a reward-predicting cue is a lever used in an experiment, which opens a box with food (the reward). ^[32] Rewards have to be surprising or unexpected for learning to occur, because (in other words) if there is no error then a current behavior can be maintained and will not change. ^{[32] [60]} An fMRI study found that people in relationships experienced brain activity in reward areas consistent with RPE, in response to having expectations about their partners' appraisal of them either validated or violated. ^[62]

Drugs of abuse (like cocaine) artificially overstimulating dopamine neurons, thus hijacking the mechanism by mimicking an RPE signal which is much stronger than could be produced naturally. ^[60]

In the theory of "incentive sensitization" developed by Kent Berridge & Terry Robinson, repeated drug use renders the brain hypersensitive to drugs and drug cues, resulting in pathological levels of "wanting" to use drugs. ^{[46] [54]} The attribution of incentive salience "wanting" (what is attention-grabbing) follows a Pavlovian learning paradigm (i.e. classical conditioning). While "wanting" can apply innately to some unconditioned stimuli, it can also become attributed to a conditioned stimulus by pairing it with the receipt of a natural (innate) reward, thereby attributing incentive salience by Pavlovian association. When a conditioned stimulus is attributed incentive salience, it becomes a reinforcer too, being attractive and guiding motivated behavior towards reward, once encountered again. ^[44] This cue-triggered "wanting" (by a conditioned stimulus) can even be so powerful that crack cocaine addicts sometimes "chase ghosts", scrambling for white granules they know aren't cocaine. ^[44] For a person in love, reminder cues such as letters or photographs can also induce craving. ^[11]

In the nascent phases of both addiction and attachment, when interactions with the desired object produce rewarding outcomes, dopamine is released in the nucleus accumbens shell which increases the salience of cues predicting the reward. In a "partner addiction" (unlike drugs of abuse), the sensory information being gathered is mostly social, for example, looks, touches, words, scents, body shape and face, or sexual experiences. ^[55] Salience in response to social stimuli is believed to be modulated by oxytocin, which is projected to reward areas. ^{[43] [63]}

These different neurochemical systems interact, as a cooperation between dopamine (incentive salience), opioids (positive rewards) and oxytocin (enhancement from social cues). A positive feedback loop is created, where behavior and predictive cues then become positively reinforced, accumulating positive associations over time. ^[55]

See also

• Psychology portal

• Attachment theory  – Psychological ethological theory
• Biology of romantic love  – Evolution and neuroscience of romantic love
• Falling in love  – Process of developing strong feelings of attachment and love
• Interpersonal attraction  – Study of the attraction between people that leads to friendship or romance
• Passionate and companionate love  – Two basic ways to experience romantic feelings
• Romance  – Love that focuses on feelings
• Theories of love  – Psychological and sociological theories

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