What Different People Would Like You to Know

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It is not surprising that we tend to like people who are like to the states, and there is a large torso of enquiry that confirms this. Merely the reasons why we like people who are similar usa can be complex. First, there is a divergence betwixt actually having a lot in common with someone (called bodily similarity) and believing that we have a lot in mutual (perceived similarity). These two kinds of similarity are certainly related, but they're non exactly the same thing. You may recollect you lot have a lot in mutual with someone, but yous might be mistaken. Or you might initially assume you'll have a lot in common with a person you lot don't know that much nigh, just to find out that you lot're not really on the aforementioned wavelength once you lot go to know each other. Or you lot may assume you take a lot in common with someone because yous similar them. There are also many unlike reasons why we might like people who are similar to usa. Perhaps we anticipate that someone who has a lot in common with u.s.a. volition similar us more than. Or possibly we merely find it more fun to hang out with someone who shares our interests.

The less information we accept almost a person, the more bodily similarity affects liking. In studies where people merely read about a stranger and don't actually run across them, finding out they accept a lot in common with the stranger greatly boosts liking, considering they have cypher else upon which to base of operations their impression. In studies where people actually met strangers with whom they had more or less in common, actual similarity affected liking, only non as much as in studies where people never met the stranger. In longer-term situations where people take more of a chance to really know each other, similar friendships and romantic relationships, bodily similarity has no event — only perceived similarity does. In part, this is considering in long-term relationships people have already filtered out dissimilar people they don't like. (You won't be friends with or date someone you dislike due to having cipher in common.) In all of these types of studies, perceived similarity had a large effect on liking. And then it'due south more important to think y'all accept a lot in mutual with someone than information technology is to actually have a lot in common.

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

• Consensual validation: Coming together people who share our attitudes makes usa experience more confident in our own attitudes well-nigh the world. If you lot love jazz music, coming together a beau jazz-lover shows you that loving jazz is OK, and maybe even a virtue.
• Cerebral evaluation: This explanation focuses on how we grade impressions of other people past generalizing from the information we have. So we learn that a person has something in common with us, and that makes us feel positively about that person, because we feel positively nigh ourselves. We then assume that the other person, like us, has other positive characteristics.
• Certainty of beingness liked: We assume that someone who has a lot in common with us is more than likely to similar usa. And in turn, we are more than likely to like people if we think they like usa.
• Fun and enjoyable interactions: Information technology'due south just more than fun to hang out with someone when you accept a lot in mutual.
• Self-expansion opportunity: Co-ordinate to self-expansion theory, one benefit of relationships is that nosotros tin gain new knowledge and experiences past spending time with someone else. Even though a dissimilar person would be more probable to actually provide new noesis and experiences, enquiry has shown that people are more likely to encounter self-expansion opportunities when interacting with someone who is similar, rather than different, to them.

In their study, Hampton and colleagues examined how well each of these five reasons could explain links between similarity and liking in situations involving both bodily and perceived similarity.

In this written report, 174 undergraduate students interacted with each other in pairs. Earlier meeting, the students didn't know anything about each other. The students then completed a questionnaire about their likes and interests (e.g., "Reality evidence or sitcom?") and their personality (e.grand., "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 exist either highly like or different to the participant's own answers.

Later on viewing the bogus data, participants rated how similar they thought the person was to them (perceived similarity) and rated how much they liked that person, based on the information in the questionnaire. Then the two participants had the chance to run into and get acquainted. Once they actually got to know each other, they once again rated perceived similarity and liking.

Key to this report, both before and after interacting with each other, the participants answered several questions designed to measure out the five different reasons for liking. (The questions were phrased differently when referring to the future interaction versus the by interaction.)

• Consensual validation: "My time to come interaction partner volition probably back up my attitudes and ideas," and "My future interaction partner will likely exist 'validating' — that is, they will aid to convince me that I am right in how I approach life."
• Cerebral evaluation: For instance, "My futurity interaction partner is probably well-respected."
• Certainty of being liked: For instance, "I think my hereafter interaction partner volition similar me."
• Fun and enjoyment: For example, "My time to come partner and I will probably laugh during our interaction period."
• Self-expansion opportunity: For case, "Interacting with my futurity partner would likely open the door to new experiences."

First, they plant that people by and large liked their interaction partner more than, both before and subsequently the interaction, if they were led to believe their partner was similar to them. Still, the effects of perceived similarity were stronger than the effects of the experimental manipulation of the bogus information, with the bogus information actually having no effect on liking afterwards the interaction. This makes sense, because any assumption of similarity based on the false information 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 bogus similarity information.

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Consensual validation helped to explain why people who perceived greater similarity liked their partners more after the interaction, just not earlier. Presumably feeling validated requires more of a take a chance to connect with someone who shares your values and preferences, rather than just a vague notion that you lot may have some things in mutual. Certainty of being liked past the partner helped to explain why people liked like partners more, both before and after the interaction. Expecting to enjoy the interaction also helped to explain why people liked similar partners more earlier the interaction, and actual enjoyment of the interaction besides explained why people similar similar partners more later on they interacted. The results also suggested that these feelings of enjoyment were past far the strongest gene and overrode the effects of consensual validation and certainty of being liked. The researchers bespeak out that this might be especially true among a sample of immature college students and that for older adults, other factors may better explain why similarity leads to liking.

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

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This study helps united states to understand why similarity can foster liking when people offset meet. Just it doesn't shed much calorie-free on why perceived similarity is of import in longer-term relationships. Information technology is likely that in long-term relationships, factors beyond fun and enjoyment contribute to the positive furnishings of similarity. For case, romantic partners who are similar to each other take fewer conflicts, and married couples with similar educational attainment and age 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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