The Attraction Hypothesis: Do Similar Attitudes Affect Anything?

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology 1986-12, Vol.51 (6), p.1167-1170
• Main Authors: Byrne, Donn, Clore, Gerald L, Smeaton, George
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Attitude Similarity; Biological and medical sciences; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Interpersonal Attraction; Other techniques and industries; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social interactions. Communication. Group processes; Social psychology
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1167

Rosenbaum's (1986) interesting attempt to demonstrate the irrelevance of similar attitudes is unsuccessful for several reasons. In three of the four attraction experiments he conducted, similar-attitude conditions were not compared with neutral control conditions as required, but instead they were compared with positive trait adjective conditions. In addition, it is not possible to create a no-attitude "control" condition because people assume a high level of self-other similarity even when the other person has relatively negative characteristics. Thus, the comparison of a similar-attitude condition with an assumed similar-attitude condition does not provide an adequate test of his hypothesis. Further, the quantitative aspects of similar and dissimilar attitudes, physical attractiveness, occupation, trait descriptions, and political affiliation have been ignored. When the quantitative aspects are considered, it is shown that Rosenbaum's obtained values do not differ from those predicted by the attraction model. Altogether, his attraction experiments and those using a learning paradigm do not contain the conditions necessary to test the proposition that similarity has no important consequence. Appropriate designs are suggested in order to provide such tests.