How Are You Similar and Different From People in Your Family? Psychology Essay

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It is non surprising that nosotros tend to like people who are similar to us, and there is a big body of research that confirms this. Merely the reasons why we like people who are like us can be circuitous. First, there is a difference between actually having a lot in mutual with someone (chosen actual similarity) and believing that we have a lot in common (perceived similarity). These two kinds of similarity are certainly related, but they're not exactly the same thing. You lot may recall yous accept a lot in common with someone, but you might be mistaken. Or you might initially assume you'll have a lot in common with a person you don't know that much virtually, just to observe out that you're not really on the same wavelength once you get to know each other. Or you may assume you lot have a lot in common with someone considering you lot like them. In that location are also many dissimilar reasons why we might similar people who are similar to united states of america. Possibly we anticipate that someone who has a lot in mutual with usa will like united states more. Or maybe we just find information technology more fun to hang out with someone who shares our interests.

The less information we have near a person, the more actual similarity affects liking. In studies where people but read well-nigh a stranger and don't really meet them, finding out they accept a lot in common with the stranger profoundly boosts liking, because they accept nothing else upon which to base their impression. In studies where people actually met strangers with whom they had more or less in common, bodily similarity affected liking, merely non every bit much as in studies where people never met the stranger. In longer-term situations where people take more of a gamble to really know each other, like friendships and romantic relationships, actual similarity has no effect — only perceived similarity does. In office, this is because in long-term relationships people accept already filtered out dissimilar people they don't similar. (You won't exist friends with or date someone yous dislike due to having nothing in common.) In all of these types of studies, perceived similarity had a large effect on liking. So it's more important to recall you accept a lot in common with someone than it is to really accept a lot in common.

Researchers have proposed several different reasons why similarity might increase liking. These reasons were examined in a report by Adam Hampton, Amanda Fisher Boyd, and Susan Sprecher, just published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships:

• Consensual validation: Meeting people who share our attitudes makes the states experience more confident in our own attitudes about the world. If you love jazz music, meeting a fellow jazz-lover shows you that loving jazz is OK, and maybe even a virtue.
• Cerebral evaluation: This explanation focuses on how we class impressions of other people by generalizing from the information nosotros take. So we learn that a person has something in common with usa, and that makes us feel positively about that person, because we feel positively about ourselves. We then assume that the other person, like united states of america, has other positive characteristics.
• Certainty of being liked: We assume that someone who has a lot in common with united states is more than likely to like us. And in plough, nosotros are more probable to like people if we think they like u.s.a..
• Fun and enjoyable interactions: It'southward just more fun to hang out with someone when you take a lot in common.
• Self-expansion opportunity: According to self-expansion theory, one benefit of relationships is that we can gain new knowledge and experiences by spending fourth dimension with someone else. Even though a dissimilar person would be more likely to actually provide new cognition and experiences, enquiry has shown that people are more probable to see self-expansion opportunities when interacting with someone who is similar, rather than unlike, to them.

In their written report, Hampton and colleagues examined how well each of these five reasons could explicate links between similarity and liking in situations involving both actual and perceived similarity.

In this study, 174 undergraduate students interacted with each other in pairs. Before meeting, the students didn't know annihilation near each other. The students then completed a questionnaire most their likes and interests (e.thousand., "Reality show or sitcom?") and their personality (e.g., "Sloppy or neat freak?"). The researchers gave them a bogus version of that same questionnaire supposedly completed by their interaction partner. The answers were rigged to be either highly similar or dissimilar to the participant'south own answers.

After viewing the bogus data, participants rated how like they thought the person was to them (perceived similarity) and rated how much they liked that person, based on the data in the questionnaire. Then the two participants had the chance to meet and get acquainted. Once they really got to know each other, they again rated perceived similarity and liking.

Key to this written report, both earlier and afterward interacting with each other, the participants answered several questions designed to measure the 5 different reasons for liking. (The questions were phrased differently when referring to the future interaction versus the past interaction.)

• Consensual validation: "My futurity interaction partner will probably support my attitudes and ideas," and "My hereafter interaction partner will probable be 'validating' — that is, they will assist to convince me that I am correct in how I approach life."
• Cerebral evaluation: For instance, "My future interaction partner is probably well-respected."
• Certainty of being liked: For instance, "I call back my hereafter interaction partner volition like me."
• Fun and enjoyment: For example, "My hereafter partner and I will probably express joy during our interaction period."
• Cocky-expansion opportunity: For example, "Interacting with my time to come partner would probable open the door to new experiences."

Outset, they institute that people mostly liked their interaction partner more, both before and after the interaction, if they were led to believe their partner was similar to them. However, the effects of perceived similarity were stronger than the furnishings of the experimental manipulation of the bogus information, with the artificial information actually having no effect on liking after the interaction. This makes sense, because any assumption of similarity based on the false data had no connection to the reality of actually interacting with that person. Thus, the perceptions of similarity based on the real interaction wiped out any effects of the artificial similarity data.

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Consensual validation helped to explain why people who perceived greater similarity liked their partners more after the interaction, simply not before. Presumably feeling validated requires more than of a adventure to connect with someone who shares your values and preferences, rather than simply a vague notion that you may accept some things in mutual. Certainty of being liked by the partner helped to explicate why people liked similar partners more than, both before and afterward the interaction. Expecting to relish the interaction also helped to explicate why people liked similar partners more before the interaction, and bodily enjoyment of the interaction too explained why people like similar partners more afterwards they interacted. The results also suggested that these feelings of enjoyment were by far the strongest factor and overrode the effects of consensual validation and certainty of being liked. The researchers bespeak out that this might be peculiarly true among a sample of young college students and that for older adults, other factors may better explicate why similarity leads to liking.

It is likewise important to remember that these pairs of strangers already had a reasonable amount in mutual, since they were both students at the same schoolhouse and approximately the same historic period. Other factors, besides enjoyment of the interaction, might explain the similarity-liking connection more than in contexts where people are not always interacting with those who are demographically like. If people had interacted with others of a different historic period or social form, and then for those who interacted with someone who was similar on those dimensions, certainty of being liked may accept played a larger role if they were concerned that someone from a different social grouping might non accept them.

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This report helps us to understand why similarity can foster liking when people first meet. But information technology doesn't shed much light on why perceived similarity is important in longer-term relationships. It is likely that in long-term relationships, factors beyond fun and enjoyment contribute to the positive effects of similarity. For instance, romantic partners who are similar to each other accept fewer conflicts, and married couples with like educational attainment and historic period are less probable to divorce.

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/close-encounters/201812/why-do-we-people-who-are-similar-us

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