A Healthy Relationship
Lana Eliot
PSY 301: Social Psychology
Professor Nickolas Dominello
March, 9 2015
Have you ever wondered why you are attracted to someone? People are frequently attracted to others and do not fully understand why they are attracted to them and the emotions they feel for a person. The question that everyone asks though is why? What is it that attracts people to different cultures, races that make up everyone as an individual? A relationship can be complicated at times. People often feel attraction to others and do not understand why they feel that particular emotion and this particular emotion leads to love and relationships. However, what is it that attracts us to another individual? There are several important factors, such as proximity and people that are similar to us. Humans have basic needs to build bonds with others and to feel like they belong. These feelings of attraction can lead to three types of love; companionate, passionate, and compassionate. Having a better understanding of how and why certain people are attracted to each other and fall in love can be very beneficial to having a better understanding of one of the most important parts in life.
Oftentimes people feel a mutual attraction or, in some cases, one person is attracted to the other but that other person is not interested. There are reasons behind this behavior. The first factor in attraction is liking those that are close to us. For example, you are more likely to like and be attracted to the person you sit next to on the bus everyday more so than the person that sits in the back of the bus that you neither talk to nor sit by. This close proximity plays a large factor in who we become attracted to. This repeated exposure day after day is directly related to greater liking of that particular individual. “The tendency to have greater liking for things we see often is the mere-exposure effect” (Feenstra, 2011. p12.1)....