Relationship Between Familiarity And Attraction Essay Examples

Introduction

The focus of this paper is on the relationship between familiarity and attraction. The paper is a critical review of Norton, Ariely, and Frost’s article, “Less is More: The Lure of Ambiguity or why Familiarity Breeds Contempt.” The paper critiques the authors’ work in regards to two validities, which include constructing and statistical validities.

Familiarity, Ambiguity and Attraction

Norton et al. seek to establish why ambiguity, which they suggest being a state of minimal or lack of familiarity result to a greater degree of attraction. According to their article, ambiguity facilitates self-centered approximations of the occurrence of one’s sentiments and more positive perceptions of another’s personalities, thus influencing one’s biased views of others. It implies that an individual bias would most probably be positive under conditions where they have little or no information about the other person (Norton et al., 2007).
The article has a weak statistical validity because the degree to which conclusions about the relationship between familiarity, ambiguity and attraction is not entirely true. Generally, people are usually faced with the dilemma of seeking more information about something in order to understand it better. It is because people feel threatened by things that they do not understand. People become more comfortable and appreciate the existence of such a thing by gaining more knowledge and information about something. It is also imperative to note that an individual’s biases may be positive or negative. In their article, Norton et al. assume that a person with little information about another person is mostly positive. Therefore, the individual would have a liking for the other person based on lack of adequate information. They further imply that once the individual gains more information about the other, they would develop a dislike. It is not always true because a person may initially have a negative bias towards another whom he/she has little information. Once they have more information about the individual, they may change their perception and thus develop a liking for the individual.

Conclusion

Norton, Ariely & Frost’s article analyzes the relationship between familiarity and attraction. As stated by Norton, Ariely & Frost, ambiguity and lack of information about an individual would result to more liking and attraction, whereas acquaintance and familiarity with individuals would lead to more disliking. However, this may not constantly be the case since a person perceptions may be improved by the provision of more information.

Reference

Norton, M., Ariely, D., & Frost, J. (2007). Less is More: The Lure of Ambiguity, or why
Familiarity Breeds Contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92 (1), 97-105.