What Leads to Romantic Attraction: Similarity, Reciprocity, Security, or Beauty? Evidence From a Speed‐Dating Study

Shanhong Luo · Guangjian Zhang

231 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Personality

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior Attachment and Relationship Dynamics Personality Traits and Psychology

Abstract

Years of attraction research have established several "principles" of attraction with robust evidence. However, a major limitation of previous attraction studies is that they have almost exclusively relied on well-controlled experiments, which are often criticized for lacking ecological validity. The current research was designed to examine initial attraction in a real-life setting-speed-dating. Social Relations Model analyses demonstrated that initial attraction was a function of the actor, the partner, and the unique dyadic relationship between these two. Meta-analyses showed intriguing sex differences and similarities. Self characteristics better predicted women's attraction than they did for men, whereas partner characteristics predicted men's attraction far better than they did for women. The strongest predictor of attraction for both sexes was partners' physical attractiveness. Finally, there was some support for the reciprocity principle but no evidence for the similarity principle.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 231 citations exist upstream.

References

1988Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.1988Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.1965Society and the Adolescent Self-Image 1958The psychology of interpersonal relations.1958The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations.1991Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model.1987Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.1987Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.

Cited by

2013Mate preferences do predict attraction and choices in the early stages of mate selection.2012Perceived, not actual, similarity predicts initial attraction in a live romantic context: Evidence from the speed‐dating paradigm 2020Women and Suicidal Behavior 2017Is Romantic Desire Predictable? Machine Learning Applied to Initial Romantic Attraction 2011When and why do ideal partner preferences affect the process of initiating and maintaining romantic relationships?

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.